Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://archive.org/details/countrylifeingeoOOfelt 


MRS.  W.  H.  FELTON. 
Taken  at  75  Years  of  Age. 


Country  Life  in  Georgia 

In  the  Days  of  My  Youth 


ALSO 


Addresses    Before   Georgia    Legislature   Woman's 

Clubs,    Women's  Organizations  and  other 

Noted    Occassions 


BY 
REBECA  LATIMER  FELTON, 

Widow  of  Hon.  W.  H.  Felton 


Copyright — 1919  by  Mrs.  Felton 


Printed  by  Index  Printing  Company 
Atlanta,  Ga. 


DEDICATION. 


In  Loving  Memory  of  My  Beloved  Friend, 

The  Late  Mrs.  Eussell  Sage, 

of  New  York  City. 


The  greatest  woman  philanthropist  in  the  known 
world.  She  gave  millions  upon  millions  of  her 
tvealth  —  to  education  —  to  philanthropic  institu- 
tions— to  charity — to  every  good  enterprise  which 
appealed  to  her — and  dying  after  ninety  glorious 
years  of  good  deeds — she  left  many  other  millions 
to  other  institutions — to  war  support  and  other 
magnificent  benefactions. 

She  was  also  a  noble  Christian  woman. 

She  had  a  broad  vision  as  to  proper  uses  for 
great  wealth — a  lofty  example  of  unselfishness. 

Untold  generations  and  unborn  millions  will  be 
benefitted  by  her  noble  gifts,  and  they  will  rise  up 
and  bless  her  name  and  memory! 

The  Author. 


WHY  THIS  BOOK  WAS  WRITTEN. 


Why  this  Book  was  written  after  I  had  passed 
my  eighty-second  year  deserves  an  explanation.  Un- 
derstanding the  infirmities  of  age,  which  can  be  easily 
increased  by  worry  and  overwork,  I  had  almost  de- 
cided to  allow  my  accumulated  manuscripts  to  remain 
after  my  decease,  when  those  who  survive  me  might 
give  them  to  publisher  if  so  desired.  But  when  I 
gave  this  statement  to  a  number  of  my  sincere  friends 
I  was  met  with  a  storm  of  protest.  They  said  I  might 
do  this  work,  if  I  would  be  careful  as  to  health,  and 
with  frequent  rest  spells.  I  explained  that  while  my 
memory  was  still  good,  and  my  condition  normal,  still 
I  was  a  very  old  lady — much  of  my  physical  strength 
abated — and  old  people  by  reason  of  age  were  almost 
sure  to  become  garrulous,  talked  too  much  (if  they 
have  impatient  kinspeople)  and  were  set  in  their  ways 
of  thinking  as  well  as  of  saying  and  doing  things,  and 
are  old-fogyish  in  regard  to  modern  methods  and  ac- 
tivities. Nevertheless  they  have  insisted  and  remind- 
ed me  that  while  we  have  Southern  histories  concern- 
ing the  Civil  War,  compiled  from  data  furnished  by 
political  and  military  leaders,  the  outside  world  really 
knows  very  little  of  how  the  people  of  Georgia  lived 
in  the  long  ago,  before  the  days  of  railroads,  tele- 
graphs, telephones,  cook  stoves,  sewing  machines,  kero- 
sene oil,  automobiles,  tri-cycles  and  a  multitude  of 
other  things  now  in  common  use.  "We  can  read 
about  those  things  with  a  greater  relish  when  we  hear 
about  the  olden  time,  than  when  they  were  unknown 
propositions."  They  reminded  me  that  Boswell's  Life 
of  Johnson  really  gives  more  satisfactory  information 
about  the  early  habits  and  homes  of  English  people 
than  all  the  fine  and  elaborate  histories  by  illustrious 

r  writers.  Finally  I  concluded  to  send  some  of  my 
already  printed  articles  to  a  distinguished  Georgia 
^  gentleman  who  has  never  held  political  office,  or 
o         sought  any  preferment  or  promotion,  but  whose  name 


is  a  synonym  of  lofty  integrity  and  honest  purpose, 
and  who  could  easily  command  the  votes  of  his  state 
and  section.  He  had  at  several  times  insisted  upon 
my  printing  or  collecting  together  the  literary  ac- 
cumulations of  my  long  lifetime,  urging  their  preser- 
vation, etc. 

When  his  reply  reached  me  I  finally  decided  to  set 
my  face  to  the  task.  I  copy  here  a  few  lines  of  his 
highly  prized  letter :  "I  am  returning  herewith  your 
papers,  registering  the  package  in  order  that  there 
may  be  no  possibility  of  their  being  lost.  I  assure  you 
it  gave  me  much  pleasure  in  reading  these  articles  of 
the  past,  giving  me  an  opportunity  of  knowing  some- 
thing of  the  history  of  the  politics  of  Georgia  with 

which  I  am  not  familiar.    In  your  reply  to  Hon. 

you  demonstrated  your  full  knowledge  of  the  political 
situation  and  issues  of  your  day  and  the  records  of  the 
public  men  of  the  time.  It  is  needless  for  me  to  say, 
you  used  your  pen  in  a  vigorous  manner.  Your  usual 
vigorous  style  of  writing  was  stimulated  in  this  case 
by  your  determination  to  protect  the  good  name  and 
acts  of  one  near  and  dear  to  you.  The  other  articles 
read  like  prophesy.  They  could  be  used  in  present 
customs.  You  have  lived  to  see  part  of  your  dreams 
realized.  It  must  give  you  great  and  added  pleasure 
and  incentives  to  labor  for  causes  you  advocated  long 
before  1900. 

"It  is  information  of  this  kind  that  is  contained  in 
the  articles  you  sent  me,  which  I  do  hope  you  will 
incorporate  in  a  forthcoming  book,  along  with  all 
other  similar  data,  for  only  in  this  way  will  it  give  to 
coming  generations  an  opportunity  of  appreciating  in 
full  the  work  which  you  did  for  Georgia  and  which 
will  give  them  the  advantages  of  a  true  insight  as  to 
the  political  history  of  the  State  during  your  lifetime. 
Sincerely  yours . " 

My  attachment  to  the  readers  of  the  Georgia  news- 
papers is  something  like  the  affection  that  an  aged 
grandmother  feels  towards  her  great  grandchildren. 
We  understand  each  other,  and  generally  we  think 
alike.  Numbers  of  these  readers  (in  their  loving  con- 
fidence) have  named  children  for  me.     I  prize  their 


affection.  I  wish  for  them  Heaven's  richest  bless- 
ings when  their  faithful  old  friend  can  write  no 
more !  They  write  to  me  and  touch  my  heart,  and 
some  of  them  say  further — "You  have  a  large  fol- 
lowing in  the  State  of  Georgia  who  are  devoted  to 
you,  especially  among  the  rural  citizens,  the  plain 
people  of  the  State.  They  always  feel  assured  you 
will  state  facts  and  furnish  proof  if  your  statements 
should  be  questioned. 

We  will  be  glad  if  you  will  consent  to  write  and 
publish  this  chronicle  for  those  you  have  loved  so  long 
and  served  so  well." 

Longfellow's  beautiful  poem,  'Morituri  Salutamus,' 
is  pertinent  as  my  reply  and  acceptance  of  the  task: 
"Something  remains  for  us  to  do  and  dare 
Even  the  oldest  tree  some  fruit  may  bear. 
Cato  learned  Greek  at  eighty ;  Sophocles 
Wrote  his  Grand  Oedipus  and  Simonides 
Bore  off  the  prize  of  verse  from  his  compeers, 
When  each  had  numbered  more  than  forescore  years. 
And  Theophrastus  at  fourscore  and  ten 
Had  but  begun  his  Characters  of  Men. 
Chaucer  at  Woodstock,  with  the  nightingales 
At  sixty  wrote  the  Canterbury  Tales. 
Goethe  at  Weimar,  toiling  to  the  last, 
Completed  Faust  when  eighty  years  were  past. 
These  are  indeed  exceptions,  but  they  show 
How  far  the  Gulf  Stream  of  our  youth  may  flow 
Into  the  Arctic  region  of  our  lives, 
Where  little  else  than  life  itself  survives. 
For  age  is  opportunity  no  less 
Than  youth  itself,  though  in  another  dress, 
And,  as  the  evening  twilight  fades  away, 
The  sky  is  filled  with  stars. 
Invisible  by  day." 


CHAPTER  I. 


SOME  INDIAN  REMINISCENSES. 


Among  the  recollections  of  my  childhood,  the  most 
startling  to  my  youthful  mind,  was  a  story  told  me  by 
my  mother  of  an  Indian  raid  that  came  near  enough 
to  my  grandfather's  home  to  massacre  and  scalp  the 
whole  family  of  friends,  Brantly  by  name.  Within  a 
very  few  miles  of  the  Brantly 's  there  was  a  large  set- 
tlement of  whites,  who  owned  their  farms — some  had 
lands  inherited  from  their  parents.  For  many  years 
they  had  not  been  thus  molested  and  the  massacre  of 
the  Brantly  family  came  like  a  shock  from  a  clear 
sky.  Mr.  Brantly  was  plowing  in  a  nearby  field,  his 
wife,  with  a  servant  woman,  was  washing  at  the 
spring  branch,  when  the  red  skins  swooped  down 
upon  them  and  tomahawked  the  last  one  of  them. 

Morgan  county,  Ga.,  was  not  a  border  county  either, 
and  when  the  alarm  was  given,  my  grandfather  Swift, 
then  a  comparatively  young  man,  saddled  a  gentle 
horse,  helped  my  grandmother  into  the  saddle,  lifted 
my  small  uncle,  William,  up  behind  her,  and  placed 
the  three-months  old  baby  (my  own  dear  mother)  in 
grandmother's  lap.  Armed  with  a  musket,  he  walked 
beside  the  horse,  until  they  were  in  sight  of  my  great- 
grandfather's home,  when  he  bade  his  little  family 
goodbye  and  went  back  to  join  the  near  neighbors  who 
had  agreed  to  pursue  the  Indians.  Night  and  day 
these  armed  men  hunted  the  tracks  of  the  murderers, 
but  to  small  effect.    This  occurred  in  the  year  1813. 

My  mother's  aunt,  born  a  Talbot,  went  to  Texas 
with  her  husband  and  children — two  in  number — with 
a  slave  woman  who  had  been  given  her  by  her  father 
before  she  left  her  girlhood  home  for  the  "wild  west." 
They  arrived  at  their  destination  in  Texas,  cleared 
some  land,  built  a  house  and  were  comfortably  settled, 


to  start  a  home  and  make  a  fortune.  The  little  family 
were  at  supper  table  one  night,  the  four-year  old  boy 
in  his  high  chair  close  at  his  father's  right  hand  and 
the  year-old  baby  girl  also  in  her  high  chair,  with  a 
home-made  doll  in  her  arms,  when  the  Mexican  In- 
dians raided  the  place,  killed  and  scalped  the  husband 
and  wife,  also  the  little  boy.  They  took  with  them  the 
baby  girl  and  the  colored  nurse  and  departed.  The 
family  in  Georgia  were  informed  by  some  means  that 
the  Mexican  Indians  would  ransom  the  little  girl,  but 
she  was  twelve  years  old  before  her  mother's  brothers 
got  on  track  of  her,  and  they  made  the  long,  wearisome 
trip  on  horseback  to  a  place  designated  in  Texas  and 
found  their  sister's  child  (still  in  care  of  the  servant 
woman  who  had  taken  up  with  one  of  the  natives). 
The  ransom  was  paid  as  agreed  upon.  The  young  girl 
was  mounted  on  a  Mexican  pony,  the  colored  woman 
on  another  pony,  and  the  faithful  uncles  started  on 
the  long  return  trip  to  Georgia. 

All  went  well  the  first  day.  On  the  second  day  the 
colored  woman  lagged  behind  for  some  purpose.  Be- 
fore the  uncles  were  apprised  of  her  ruse,  she  was 
whipping  the  two  ponies  and  escaping.  Another  long 
parly  was  had,  and  another  ransom  was  handed  over. 
The  colored  woman  was  left  behind  this  time,  but  the 
journey  through  Texas,  Louisiana,  Mississippi  and 
Alabama  was  a.  fearful  one,  constant  anxiety  about 
Indians  was  added  to  the  fatigues  of  the  long  travel, 
all  on  horseback. 

The  girl  brought  her  doll  with  her,  the  only  memory 
that  remained  to  her  of  her  parents  and  little  brother. 
She  died  early — was  never  fully  at  ease  with  her  sur- 
roundings and  slow  in  adapting  herself  to  the  ways  of 
her  kindred. 

The  girl  was  my  mother's  own  cousin  and  I  found 
myself  constantly  pondering  over  what  had  happened 
to  her  in  that  wild  country.  So  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand that  my  early  life  was  much  concerned  about 
Indians.  I  was  really  three  years  old  when  the  Chero- 
kee tribe  was  forcibly  removed  from  Georgia  in  1838, 
and  were  started  on  their  long  trip  to  Indian  Terri- 
tory.    It  has  been  stated  that  four  thousand  died  on 


the  way  before  the  exiles  could  stop  and  find  a  resting 
place.  There  were  14,000  who  began  the  march.  The 
journey  of  six  or  seven  hundred  miles  was  performed 
in  about  five  months.  Chief  men  of  the  Cherokees 
were  assassinated  on  the  trip.  Those  who  took  an  ac- 
tive part  in  negotiating  the  treaty  with  the  United 
States  government,  at  New  Echota,  Major  Ridge  and 
his  son,  John,  with  Elias  Bondinat,  thus  met  their  un- 
timely fate.  Forty  years  ago  I  met  in  Washington 
City  another  Elias  Boudinot,  a  direct  descendant  of 
the  murdered  Cherokee  Chief.  He  had  held  office  un- 
der the  Confederate  congress  and  was  then  employed 
as  agent  for  his  people  in  their  dealings  with  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  when  I  questioned  him  concerning 
the  fate  of  his  ancestor.  This  final  treaty  with  the 
Cherokee  Indians  was  held  in  Murray  county,  G-a., 
and  the  house  that  John  Ross  lived  in  is  still  standing 
within  the  town  limits  of  Rossville,  "Walker  county, 
Ga.,  only  a  few  miles  from  Chattanooga,  which  was 
named  for  him,  then  known  as  "Ross'  Landing." 
Ross  opposed  the  removal  of  the  Cherokees  and  the 
factions  for  and  against  were  known  as  the  Ridge 
party  and  the  Ross  party.  The  Indians  were  finally 
collected  at  Ross'  landing  (Chattanooga)  on  June 
10th,  1838,  for  the  State  of  Georgia  took  possession 
of  this  Cherokee  Country  on  24th  of  May,  1838. 

In  Bartow  county,  where  I  have  been  a  citizen  since 
the  year  1853,  there  are  most  remarkable  mounds  on  a 
plantation  which  has  been  in  possession  of  the  Tumlin 
family  for  more  than  seventy  years.  These  mounds 
seem  to  antedate  Indian  occupation.  So  far  as  known 
the  Indians  have  no  tradition  concerning  them.  They 
are  the  work  of  skilled  architects  and  some  of  the 
relics  found  in  those  ancient  mounds  are  exquisite 
productions.  There  is  a  vase  of  artistic  shape  and  high 
coloring  which  was  unearthed  by  an  unusual  flood 
time,  in  the  Etowah  river,  that  we  may  reasonably 
suppose  was  fashioned  by  a  race  of  people  who  occu- 
pied this  section  of  the  country  long  before  anything 
was  known  of  the  rude  and  illiterate  aboriginal  In- 
dians of  America.  Also  a  large  platter  of  beautiful 
workmanship  was  purchased  by  the  authorities  of  the 

10 


Smithsonian  Institute  and  highly  prized  by  American 
scientists.  The  red  Indians  were  in  possession  when 
Columbus  landed  in  1492.  Those  who  erected  these 
mounds  were  here  before  the  Indian  period  of  occu- 
pancy in  earlier  centuries. 

In  this  Cherokee  section  of  Georgia  the  Indian 
names  for  rivers  are  still  preserved  without  change, 
and  many  of  Georgia's  streams  in  other  sections  have 
the  names  of  Indian  origin.  Except  the  mounds,  there 
is  but  little  else  remaining  to  tell  the  story  of  the  red 
man  who  refused  to  be  the  white  man's  slave,  prefer- 
ing  to  be  bayonetted  off  the  continent,  in  his  love  for 
freedom.  When  the  full  story  of  world  democracy  is 
chronicled,  in  the  light  of  this  world-wide  European 
war  as  connected  with  the  Republic  of  the  United 
States,  what  relation  will  the  Red  Indian  bear  to  the 
Russian  peasant  who  has  so  lately  accepted  democracy 
in  lieu  of  Czarism?  The  Red  Indians  of  North 
America  refused  to  become  the  white  man's  slave, 
while  Africa  made  no  resistance.  The  aboriginal  In- 
dian received  the  white  man  as  a  friend  until  the  white 
man  taught  him  to  drink  "fire  water"  and  dispos- 
sessed him  of  his  "happy  hunting  grounds."  The 
African  in  the  slave-holding  states  did  not  rise  up  in 
defense  of  democracy  or  human  freedom  when  the 
Federal  armies  of  the  North  had  overrun  and  subju- 
gated the  slave  owning  Southern  Confederacy.  Who- 
ever writes  the  true  story  of  the  red  man  must  give 
him  credit  for  higher  ideals  and  loftier  patriotism 
than  the  Mongolian  or  any  of  the  yellow  or  black 
tribes  can  furnish. 

The  story  of  Georgia  for  a  hundred  years  and  the 
methods  used  to  dispossess  the  Indians  of  their  happy 
hunting  grounds  will  ever  be  a  humiliating  confession 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon's  greed  and  injustice  against  their 
red  brother. 

Perhaps  the  most  thrilling  recital  of  such  assumacy 
and  violence  is  found  in  the  city  of  Washington, 
where  the  government  of  the  United  States  has  chroni- 
cled it,  found  in  various  volumes  under  the  title  of 
American  State  Papers,  and  I  read  the  story  of  the 
"Yazoo  Fraud"  forty  years  ago,  in  certain  of  these 

11 


volumes  that  I  procured  from  the  House  Library  upon 
application  with  a  Congressman's  written  order. 

There  had  been  a  bill  passed  through  the  Georgia 
Legislature,  and  which  Gov.  George  Matthews  signed, 
which  sold  to  certain  trading  companies  all  the  lands 
owned  by  Georgia,  from  the  Oconee  river  to  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  from  the  Tennessee  line  southward  to  Flor- 
ida, a  tract  that  covered  the  two  states  afterwards  or- 
ganized into  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  besides  the  en- 
tire western  part  of  Georgia.  These  lands,  as  described 
in  the  petitions  and  deeds,  amounted  to  nearly  22,- 
000,000  acres.  As  soon  as  these  lands  were  corruptly 
sold  the  companies  computed  the  tract  as  containing 
40,000,000  acres.  Wars  with  Indians  had  been  ex- 
pensive to  the  taxpayers  of  Georgia  and  a  lying  title 
was  made  to  the  bill  for  sale  of  these  so-called 
"Yazoo"  lands,  and  a  provision  was  inserted  looking 
towards  payment  of  state  troops  with  the  money  that 
these  lands  sold  for.  The  forty-million  tract  was  re- 
ally bargained  away  for  $500,000,  the  state  getting 
one-fifth  of  the  money  in  hand,  the  balance  mortgaged 
to  be  paid  within  ten  months.  There  were  four  of 
these  companies,  the  Georgia  Company,  the  largest  of 
the  four,  took  half  the  gross  amount,  $250,000,  the 
Georgia-Mississippi,  $155,000 ;  the  Upper  Mississippi, 
$35,000,  and  the  Tennessee  Company,  $60,000,  each 
getting  by  metes  and  bounds  the  lands  proportioned  to 
these  respective  payments.  The  state  of  Georgia  sold 
twice  the  land  that  these  pretended  traders  claimed  to 
receive,  and  for  half  the  money  that  was  really 
brought  forward.  A  lying  title  was  made  to  cover  the 
outrageous  swindle,  and  the  legislative  act  forbade  the 
sale  of  an  acre  of  the  land  to  any  "foreign  king, 
prince  or  potentate."  It  was  worded  to  attract  for- 
eigners as  well  as  emigrants  from  other  states  of  the 
Union.  Having  bought  a  principality  at  less  than  the 
eighth  of  a  cent  per  acre,  the  plan  was  laid  to  sell  at 
very  low  figures  and  sell  as  quickly  as  possible. 

Augusta  was  the  capital  of  Georgia,  and  the  record 
shows  that  the  honor  of  the  state  and  her  greatest  pub- 
lic interests  were  bartered  off  by  traitorous  Repre- 
sentatives and  the  Chief  Executive.    Except  one  man, 

12 


Robert  Watkins  by  name,  the  official  record  in  Wash- 
ington city  shows  that  every  man  who  voted  for  the 
sale  was  corruptly  influenced.  The  Senate  of  Georgia 
consisted  of  20  members — ten  voted  for  the  sale,  8 
against  it.  In  the  Lower  House  there  were  34  mem- 
bers— nineteen  voted  for  the  sale  and  nine  in  the  neg- 
ative. In  these  volumes,  called  "American  State  Pa- 
pers," the  amounts  paid  to  these  traitorous  represent- 
atives are  set  down.  Some  received  cash,  some  large 
grants  of  land,  some  had  negroes  conveyed  to  them, 
etc.,  but  the  whole  story  is  blazoned  in  full  in  these 
official  records.  I  copied  down  every  single  name  and 
the  amount  received,  but  I  have  made  a  lifelong  rule 
in  discussing  matters  of  this  kind,  to  spare  the  names 
for  sake  of  innocent  relatives  who  might  be  hurt  by 
a  public  exposure  of  such  evil  things,  unless  certain 
actors  in  public  betrayaal  of  their  constituents  had 
made  personal  attacks  on  me  or  mine,  then  I  made  the 
story  very  plain  with  names,  dates  and  proof.  A 
judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  was 
one  of  the  active  conspirators  in  this  Yazoo  Swindle, 
James  Wilson  by  name,  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  also  a  member  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress, a  member  of  the  convention  that  formed  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  at  the  time  that 
this  Yazoo  sale  was  carried  through  the  legislature  of 
Georgia,  one  of  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  and  so  elevated  in  public  confidence 
that  he  was  one  of  the  original  selections  for  the  or- 
ganization of  the  first  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  Prepared  by  his  position  to  adjudicate  the 
very  first  test  case  that  might  be  made — appealed  by 
these  corrupt  Yazooists.  He  became  a  leading  partner 
and  interested  to  the  extent  of  a  million  acres  in  this 
unparallelled  swindle  in  barefaced  wickedness.  Side 
by  side  with  this  schemer  on  the  bench  and  unworthy 
official,  was  Nathaniel  Pendleton,  District  Judge  for 
the  Northern  District  of  Georgia,  also  Andrew  Mc- 
Alister,  District  Attorney  of  the  United  States  for 
Georgia.  There  were  only  two  Superior  Court  dis- 
tricts in  the  State,  and  one  of  the  two  judges  was  Wil- 
liam Stith,  who  accepted  $13,000  in  cash  and  prom- 

13 


ise  of  the  traitors  to  elect  him  the  next  Governor  of 
Georgia.  The  contrast  was  great  between  Judge  Stith 
and  Judge  George  Walton,  who  illustrated  his  office 
and  retired  from  the  bench  without  a  spot  or  blemish 
on  his  character. 

The  active  man  in  Georgia,  the  chief  conspirator, 
was  United  States  Senator  James  Gunn.  He  came 
from  Virginia  during  the  revolutionary  war,  and 
joined  Gen.  Greene's  army  when  Gen.  Washington  dis- 
patched Gen.  Greene  to  recover  the  Carolinas  and 
Georgia.  After  the  losing  battle  of  Camden,  Gen. 
Greene  had  a  fuss  with  him  about  disreputable  horse 
racing  and  it  is  reported  that  he  swindled  a  woman 
who  was  seeking  to  recover  pay  for  a  celebrated  race 
horse  belonging  to  her  husband's  estate.  In  Simms' 
Life  of  Gen.  Greene,  some  of  these  things  are  related. 
But  Gunn  was  adroit  in  his  methods.  In  1789  he  was 
chosen  to  the  U.  S.  Senate  with  Senator  Wm.  Few. 
When  he  ran  for  re-election  the  Yazooists  were  his 
champions  and  he  prosecuted  the  Yazoo  Fraud  to  the 
limit  of  his  ability  and  he  prostituted  his  senatorial  in- 
fluence and  used  his  ignoble  opportunity  to  its  suc- 
cessful promotion.  His  last  term  in  office  expired  in 
1801 ;  after  the  vengeance  of  Georgia  had  descended 
on  the  ignoble  men  who  had  vilely  betrayed  her  trust. 
When  the  people  awoke  to  the  certain  knowledge  that 
the  men  who  had  bought  the  "Yazoo  lands"  had 
bribed  the  majority  of  the  Georgia  legislature  and  the 
Governor,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  also  be- 
came aroused  to  the  infamy  of  the  transaction.  Gen. 
James  Jackson,  the  other  Georgia  Senator,  resigned 
his  seat  in  Congress,  came  home  to  Georgia  and  was 
elected  to  the  Legislature  which  rescinded  the  Act, 
and  the  tempest  of  indignation  against  those  who  were 
bribed  made  some  of  them  uneasy  as  to  what  would 
happen  to  them  at  home.  The  Yazoo  sale  was  de 
nounced  in  the  Legislature  as  a  fraud,  the  Yazoo  Act 
was  rescinded  and  the  records  were  publicly  burned  in 
Louisville,  Georgia  (then  the  State  Capital),  by  fire 
drawn  from  Heaven  by  a  sun  glass.  In  the  days  when 
matches  were  very  scarce,  these  sun  glasses  were  com- 
mon.   I  well  remember  seeing  them  in  my  childhood's 

14 


home.  Georgia's  title  to  the  immense  tract  sold  to 
Gunn  and  Wade  Hampton  of  South  Carolina,  and 
their  co-workers  was  seriously  questioned  in  Congress. 
Our  disturbances  with  Spain  and  the  dread  of  Indian 
alliances  with  Great  Britain  made  Gen.  "Washington 
anxious.  After  years  of  dispute  and  political  chican- 
ery Congress  finally  appropriated  five  millions  of  dol- 
lars to  settle  the  claims  of  innocent  purchasers,  and 
then  the  lands  were  divided  as  at  present,  between 
Georgia,  Alabama  and  Mississippi. 

But  the  Yazoo  swindlers  soon  passed  out  as  owners. 
They  sold  out  rapidly  and  covered  their  ill-gotten 
gains  into  their  plethoric  pockets.  This  Yazoo  history 
is  fully  told  in  the  American  State  Papers  alluded  to 
in  this  article.  I  read  these  facts  myself  in  Washing- 
ton city.  One  declaration  by  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  remains  vivid  in  memory.  The  names, 
the  amounts  paid  to  bribed  officials  and  the  shame  of 
this  transaction,  are  to  be  carefully  kept,  so  long  as 
the  government  of  the  United  States  remains  in  force, 
as  a  living  witness  so  to  speak  of  the  infamy  of  the 
actors,  forevermore. 

In  Gov.  Bullock's  time  there  were  ugly  stories  of 
bribed  legislators,  and  there  have  been  various  legisla- 
tive and  congressional  investigations  that  make  the 
people  at  home  aware  that  frauds  and  swindles  were 
still  active  in  political  centres,  but  the  only  part  of  my 
life  that  came  in  actual  touch  with  corrupt  politicians 
in  high  places  when  my  husband  was  in  Congress,  was 
that  well-known  era  of  graft  and  bribery  that  attend- 
ed the  corrupt  progress  of  Pacific  Railroad  legislation 
in  the  national  congress  in  the  70s  and  80s,  when  men 
of  high  position  in  many  states  were  openly  pointed 
at  as  being  owned  by  these  railroad  authorities  and 
serving  in  their  pay,  and  yet  holding  commissions  as 
senators  and  congressmen  in  the  highest  legislative 
body  in  the  world.  Supreme  Court  judges  were  also 
known  to  be  their  willing  servants,  appointed  under 
agreement  as  filling  campaign  pledges  and  Pacific 
Railroad  lobbyists  had  the  finest  quarters  and  high- 
est salaries  known  to  that  period  in  Washington  city 

15 


homes  and  hotels.    History  repeats  itself.    Human  na- 
ture is  the  same  in  all  ages. 


MY  KINSPEOPLE. 


At  the  risk  of  appearing  egotistical  I  must  tell  you 
a  good  deal  of  my  grandparents  and  parents,  because 
it  is  to  their  memories  and  traditions  that  I  owe  very 
much  of  the  information  which  it  is  my  purpose  to  re- 
late in  these  pages.  As  I  knew  of  these  personages 
better  than  all  others,  I  am  doubtless  impressed  by 
their  opinions,  and  their  hereditary  associations  and 
trends  of  thought  have  been  more  or  less  perpetuated 
in  their  descendants,  I  cannot,  therefore,  very  well 
avoid  such  opinions  or  omit  such  mention. 

So  far  as  known  my  forbears  were  either  Virginians 
or  Marylanders  in  the  early  days  of  the  Republic.  My 
father  was  a  boy  of  seven  years  when  his  parents 
moved  from  Maryland  to  Georgia.  Both  of  his  par- 
ents had  progenitors  at  that  time  who  had  been  living 
in  Maryland  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and 
both  of  his  grandfathers  served  in  the  Army  of  the 
Revolution.  There  was  a  trunk  full  of  papers,  let- 
ters and  various  valuable  documents  in  my  childhood 
home,  once  the  property  of  his  mother,  and  many  of 
the  letters  were  written  to  her,  after  she  moved  to 
Georgia,  by  the  Maryland  kin.  I  can  recall  the  de- 
light it  gave  me  to  examine  my  grandmother's  papers 
when  I  was  a  bit  of  a  girl.  I  recollect  she  was  married 
by  a  bishop  of  Maryland — she  was  a  staunch  Episco- 
palian— and  the  Bishop 's  name  was  signed  to  the  mar- 
riage contract  that  closely  antedated  the  wedding  fes- 
tivities and  ceremonies.  Alas!  When  "Sherman 
marched  through  Georgia"  the  trunk,  with  the  letters 
and  papers,  were  all  destroyed,  as  were  thousands  of 
other  properties  of  like  interest  in  countless  Georgia 
homes  during  the  Civil  War.  But  the  ownership  of 
her  own  estate  is  substantiated  by  the  records  at  An- 
napolis, Md.,  and  in  the  court  house  of  LaPlata, 
Charles  county,  where  deeds  and  wills  are  fortunately 

16 


of  permanent  record.  The  various  farms  which  she 
sold  before  moving  to  Georgia,  and  also  the  sale  of 
"Marshall  Hall,"  on  the  Potomac  river,  are  recorded 
in  the  records  here  mentioned,  and  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  a  Maryland  woman  did  own  and  manage  and 
sell  her  own  lands  as  early  as  the  year  1803.  "Mar- 
shall Hall,"  on  the  Potomac  river,  as  many  of  my 
readers  know,  is  nearly  opposite  to  Mt.  Vernon,  and  is 
the  great  picnic  grounds  for  Washington  city  people. 
In  the  mid-summer  of  June,  1916,  there  were  seven  of 
the  largest  church  organizations  in  the  nation's  cap- 
ital that  picnicked  there  in  one  day  when  I  chanced 
to  go  along  on  a  river  boat,  and  it  was  said  that  ten 
thousand  tickets  were  sold  at  the  7th  Street  wharf 
during  the  day  here  mentioned.  These  river  steamers 
touch  first  at  Mt.  Vernon  and  then  continue  to  "Mar- 
shall Hall."  As  early  as  1650  a  Marshall  bought  and 
owned  a  place  named  "Marshall,"  and  of  this  tract 
on  the  Potomac  river  he  willed  two  hundred  acres  to 
his  daughter  Barbara.  She  married  a  Hanson  and 
this  two-hundred  acre  tract  continued  in  the  owner- 
ship and  occupancy  of  Marshalls  and  Hansons  as  late 
as  1847,  and  has  been  known  as  Marshall  Hall  for 
considerably  more  than  two  hundred  years.  My 
grandmother  inherited  it  from  her  father's  estate  and 
sold  it  in  1803  to  her  brother,  preparatory  to  removal, 
as  before  stated,  to  Georgia.  There  were  three  broth- 
ers (her  uncles  and  father)  by  name  John,  Richard 
and  "William.  All  three  owned  a  part  of  an  estate 
called  "Three  Brothers."  Richard  died  and  his  will 
was  dated  October  30,  1757,  before  the  war  of  Inde- 
pendence. John  Marshall  died  in  1801.  William 
Marshall  died  in  Chas  Co.,  Md.,  in  1793.  John,  Wil- 
liam, Philip,  son  of  John,  and  Thomas,  son  of  Richard, 
all  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  between  1775  and  1778. 
(It  is  recorded  that  Hon.  Benj.  Few,  one  of  Georgia's 
noted  Revolutionary  officers,  was  born  in  1744,  at 
"Three  Sisters"  plantation,  near  Baltimore,  Harford 
Co.,  Md.  He  has  a  Georgia  descendant  in  Dr.  Jas.  E. 
•Dickey,  president  of  Emory  College  in  Georgia.) 

In  the  time  of  Charles  the  1st  he  who  lost  his  head 
in  Cromwell's  time,  Maryland  was  inhabited  by  In- 

17 


dian  tribes.  A  gang  of  bandits,  however,  settled  on 
Kent  Island  in  the  Chesapeake  bay.  Charles  the  1st 
conferred  a  grant  in  Newfoundland  on  George  Cal- 
vert, the  first  Lord  Baltimore,  and  who  had  been 
Knighted  by  James  1st  of  England. 

The  climate  was  so  forbidding  that  Calvert  traveled 
southward  and  beheld  a  country  lying  on  the  Chesa- 
peake bay  and  the  Potomac  river,  which  greatly 
pleased  him.  When  he  returned  to  England  he  so  im- 
pressed Queen  Henrietta  Maria  with  his  accounts  of 
that  part  of  the  New  World  that  King  Charles  con- 
ferred this  Maryland  grant  on  George  Calvert.  Soon 
after  he  sickened  and  died.  His  title  and  estates  were 
turned  over  to  his  son  and  heir,  Cecil,  the  second  Lord 
Baltimore.  Cecil  afterward  commissioned  his  brother 
Leonard  to  take  possession,  and  the  new  country  was 
given  the  name  of  Maryland  in  honor  of  the  enthusi- 
astic Queen.  Two  hundred  and  four  Englishmen, 
with  their  families,  sailed  in  two  small  ships  called 
The  Ark  and  The  Dove,  and  after  a  tedious  voyage, 
landed  on  Kent  Island.  Among  those  who  came  over 
with  Governor  Leonard  Calvert,  Lord  Baltimore  (Ce- 
cil never  came  to  Maryland)  were  four  young  Han- 
sons, wards  of  the  Queen  Henrietta  Maria.  Two  of 
them  later  returned  to  England.  Randolph  Hanson, 
one  of  the  four,  and  who  died  in  1699,  married  in 
early  life  Barbara  Marshall,  before  mentioned,  who 
had  inherited  the  two  hundred  acres  forming  a  part  of 
the  plantation  called  "Marshall." 

In  "Sidelights  on  Maryland  History"  it  is  recorded 
that  the  title  to  "Marshall  Hall"  was  made  by  an 
Indian  Chief  and  patented  by  Lord  Baltimore.  There 
were  frequent  intermarriages  between  the  Hansons 
and  Marshalls.  In  the  list  of  fourteen  Marshalls  that 
can  be  seen  in  Colonial  Hall,  Washington  city,  as 
signers  of  the  oath  of  allegiance  in  1775-78  there  is  a 
John  Marshall  Hanson,  a  John  Hanson  Marshall,  and 
Thomas  Marshall  Hanson.  It  was  a  Hanson,  an  offi- 
cial who  took  down  the  names  of  these  signers  in 
Chas  Co.  Each  name  had  a  date,  also  a  number  and 
this  signature  is  considered  the  highest  test  of  loyalty. 

In  the  recorded  will  of  Capt.  Randolph  Brandt,  who 

18 


died  in  1699,  and  whose  will  I  copied  some  months 
ago,  in  the  Land  Office  at  Annapolis,  he  gives  his  son, 
Randolph  Brandt  the  2nd,  "two  hundred  acres  lying 
on  the  Potomac  river  near  land  of  Randolph  Hanson's, 
wherein  Brandt  is  now  dwelling,  called  Hammer- 
smith. ' '  Randolph  Brandt  the  2nd  witnessed  the  will 
of  Randolph  Hanson,  in  1698,  likewise  did  Richard 
Harrison,  progenitor  of  two  Presidents  Harrison,  both 
of  Hanson  lineage.  This  data  I  collected  from  "Mary- 
land Calendar  of  Wills"  with  proper  dates,  books  of 
record  and  numbers  on  pages  in  folio. 

The  title  deeds  from  the  Indian  chief  are  said  to  be 
still  in  possession  of  Marshall  and  Hanson  families. 
The  present  owners  of  ' '  Marshall  Hall  have  been  seek- 
ing the  Bible  record  of  these  early  owners  and  offered 
some  aged  relatives  five  hundred  dollars  for  a  Bible 
containing  the  names  of  a  number  of  them,  but  the 
offer  was  declined." 

One  of  these  Hansons  was  so  highly  respected  in 
Maryland  that  the  state  has  presented  his  statue  to 
the  Hall  of  Fame  in  U.  S.  Capitol.  Along  with  Charles 
Carroll,  of  Carrollton,  the  two  represent  their  native 
state.  John  Hanson,  whose  magnificent  marble  statue 
can  be  seen  in  this  Hall  of  Fame,  was  a  grandson  of 
John  Hanson,  the  emigrant  and  son  of  Robert  Hanson. 
This  distinguished  John  Hanson  was  early  elected  to 
the  General  Assembly  of  Maryland,  and  is  known  in 
Colonial  history  as  one  of  the  most  noted  of  its  citi- 
zens. He  was  also  distinguished  in  Revolutionary  af- 
fairs. He  was  president  of  congress  when  the  seat  of 
government  was  located  in  Philadelphia,  and  wel- 
comed General  "Washington  before  the  U.  S.  Congress 
when  he  returned  from  Yorktown  after  the  surrender 
of  Lord  Cornwallis.  These  facts  can  all  be  found  in 
the  Library  of  Congress,  in  "Sidelights  on  Maryland 
History."  Both  the  Presidents  Harrison  were  of  his 
lineal  descendants.  U.  S.  Senator  James  Alford 
Pearce  was  a  descendant.  Hon  John  Hanson  Thom- 
as was  U.  S.  Senator  from  Maryland,  dying  in  1815. 
Dr.  John  Hanson  Thomas  was  in  the  Legislature  of 
Maryland,  1861-65.  He  was  confined  in  Federal 
prison  for  six  months.    Pages  121-324  "Sidelights  of 

19 


Maryland  History."  This  John  Hanson  of  the  Hall 
of  Fame  was  born  in  Charles  county,  1715,  died  1793. 
There  were  two  dominating  factions  in  the  State  of 
Maryland  before  and  during  the  Colonial  wars.  John 
Hanson  represented  the  Protestants  while  Lord  Balti- 
more and  his  following  were  zealous  Catholics.  Han- 
son's grandfather,  the  emigrant,  known  in  Maryland 
records  as  the  ' '  Colonel, ' '  was  doubtless  a  brother  to 
Randolph  Hanson — both  wards  of  Queen  Henrietta 
Maria — the  latter,  as  before  stated,  living  at  Marshall 
Hall,  and  married  to  Barbara  Marshall  after  1650  and 
mentioned  in  her  father's  will,  probated  in  1698,  and 
is  of  record  in  Annapolis  at  this  time.  Randolph  Han- 
son's  will  was  made  in  1698,  and  all  these  Hansons 
and  Marshalls  were  citizens  of  Charles  county,  named 
for  King  Charles  of  England.  Their  wills  are  all  re- 
corded. 

General  Washington's  half  brother,  Lawrence,  in- 
herited the  magnificent  estate  of  Mt.  Vernon  on  the 
death  of  his  father.  Lawrence  became  the  guardian 
of  George  when  the  latter  was  twelve  years  old.  Law- 
rence married  into  the  Fairfax  family,  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  in  Colonial  history.  George  therefore 
spent  much  of  his  time  at  Mt.  Vernon  when  he  was 
very  young.  In  1752  Lawrence  died,  leaving  an  in- 
fant daughter  and  when  the  little  girl  died,  George, 
the  future  President,  succeeded  to  the  estate  of  Mt. 
Vernon  as  legal  owner.  The  Washingtons  came  into 
Virginia  as  early  as  1657.  It  will  be  seen  that  these 
Marshalls  and  Hansons  were  even  then  their  neigh- 
bors, their  lands  being  divided  only  by  the  Potomac 
river.  This  nearness  accounts  for  the  fact  that  four- 
teen Marshalls  residents  of  Charles  county,  Maryland, 
just  across  the  river,  signed  the  oath  of  allegiance  to 
the  Revolutionary  cause  in  1775-78.  If  General  Wash- 
ington had  failed  every  one  of  these  neighbors  would 
have  been  exiled,  their  lands  confiscated  and  doubt- 
less their  heads  would  have  adorned  a  pike.  My 
grandmother,  Rebecca  Marshall  Latimer,  inherited 
Marshall  Hall  on  the  death  of  her  father  in  the  year 
1793.  Gen.  Washington  died  at  Mt.  Vernon  in  1799. 
My  own  father  was  born  in  1799.  The  ownership  of 

20 


this  Marshall  tract  began  in  1651  according  to  "Ma- 
ryland Calendar  of  Wills.'  It  is  obvious  that  Mar- 
shall Hall  and  Mt.  Vernon  House  were  erected  near 
the  same  time.  It  is  family  tradition  that  brick  were 
brought  in  from  England,  possibly  as  ballast  for  sail- 
vessels.  Furniture  and  other  things  came  in  also,  pos- 
sibly exchanged  for  tobacco,  the  market  crop  of  early 
Marylanders.  This  tobacco  brought  ready  money  in 
pounds  shillings  and  pence.  Tobacco  is  still  grown  in 
Maryland  on  a  large  plantation  known  as  Lord  Balti- 
more 's  ' '  Dower  House, ' '  seventeen  miles  below  "Wash- 
ington city.  I  visited  the  old  Dower  House  in  1914 
with  a  party  of  friends  and  the  owner  and  hostess  told 
us  of  her  growing  tobacco  crop  that  day.  This  old 
Dower  House  was  built  to  withstand  Indian  attack.  A 
secret  outlet,  like  a  tunnel,  was  constructed  as  a  means 
of  escape  should  the  red  skins  overcome  the  whites  in 
this  great  house.  There  were  friendly  Indians  as  well 
as  hostiles,  and  another  ancestor  of  our  family  had  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  this  Indian  warfare  about  the 
same  era  of  Maryland  history. 

Capt.  Randolph  Brandt  might  have  been  born  in 
the  Barbadoes,  where  his  father  and  mother  and  old- 
est brother  lived  and  died,  for  their  wills  are  recorded 
there  in  proper  form  and  order,  but  family  tradition 
tells  of  English  birth  and  lineage  for  the  ancestors. 
Capt.  Randolph  Brandt  came  into  Maryland  before 
1660,  upon  the  invitation  of  Cord  Baltimore.  They 
were  close  friends  and  patriotic  workers  during  life 
and  "Maryland  Archives"  preserved  in  the  Library 
of  Congress,  is  full  of  the  story  of  Capt.  Brandt's  un- 
usual patriotism.  He  and  Lord  Baltimore  were  zeal- 
ous Catholics  through  life.  Capt.  Brandt  had  a  wife 
and  children  when  he  settled  at  "Penguiah  Manor," 
about  the  year  1670,  in  Charles  county,  and  the  name 
of  the  plantation  is  still  connected  with  the  soil,  and 
the  land  lies  quite  near  the  county  site  of  LaPlata. 

The  county  site  of  Charles  county  up  to  the  close 
of  the  Civil  War  was  ' '  Port  Tobacco. ' '  Federals  and 
Confederates  had  numerous  clashes.  It  was  evident 
that  county  records  were  in  danger  of  destruction. 
These  books,  of  incalculable  value  to  future  history 

21 


were  conveyed  to  the  Land  Office  in  Annapolis  as  a 
place  of  safety.  After  a  splendid  court  house,  erected 
at  LaPlata,  the  new  county  site,  had  been  finished 
these  valuable  records  have  been  going  back  into  the 
custody  of  Charles  county  officials.  The  room  in 
which  they  are  stored  at  LaPlata  is  modern  and  fire- 
proof. It  was  at  LaPlata  that  I  found  fuller  records 
of  my  Maryland  kindred,  although  the  Land  Office 
at  Annapolis  is  a  wonderful  storage  place  for  Colo- 
nial and  Revolutionary  documents.  I  found  in  La 
Plata  a  deed  of  sale  made  by  my  grandmother,  Re- 
becca Marshall  Latimer  (for  whom  I  was  named)  to 
three  plantations  called  "Walker,"  "Poquasket"  and 
a  part  of  ' '  Three  Brothers, ' '  all  lying  and  situated  in 
Charles  county,  where  she  and  her  progenitors  were 
born  and  lived.  For  the  three  places  here  mentioned 
she  received  £1,063,  ten  shillings,  current  money  at 
that  time,  nearly  six  thousand  dollars.  All  planta- 
tions have  a  name  in  that  section  of  the  country.  The 
clerk  of  La  Plata  court  house  told  me  that  he  himself 
had  purchased  and  then  owned  a  part  of  "Penguiah 
Manor,"  and  named  other  nearby  places  that  had 
names  noted  in  the  wills  of  the  Brandt's,  the  Lati- 
mer's and  Marshalls.'  I  found  these  facts  in  Book 
"I.  B."  pages  365-372  inclusive.  Book  "I.  B."  No. 
7  was  compiled  in  1806. 

Capt.  Randolph  Brandt  was  captain  of  Maryland 
militia  in  1678,  member  of  General  Colonial  assembly 
in  1682,  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs  when  ¥m. 
Penn  was  also  Commissioner  of  Indian  affairs  in  State 
of  Pennsylvania.  Mary,  his  daughter,  married 
James  Latimer,  who  died  in  Charles  county,  1718. 
Their  son,  James  Latimer  2nd,  married  and  left  a  son, 
Marcus  Latimer.  Marcus  Latimer,  grandson  of  James 
who  married  Mary  Brandt,  took  oath  of  allegiance 
1777-78.  His  son,  William  Latimer,  married  my 
grandmother,  Rebecca  Marshall  Latimer.  The  sale  of 
"Marshall  Hall"  is  recorded  Liber  "C"  No.  2  page 
147,  Land  Office,  Annapolis. 

James  Latimer,  son  of  James  Latimer  1st  and  Mary 
Brandt,  and  grandson  of  Capt.  Randolph  Brandt, 
Lord  Baltimore's  friend,  was  prominent  in  early  Co- 

22 


lonial  days.  This  data  is  here  set  down,  for  the  bene- 
fit of  relatives  who  may  be  seeking  genealogical  data 
in  days  to  come,  and  because  of  their  connection  with 
our  forefathers. 

Capt.  Brandt  was  expressly  engaged  to  protect  the 
towns  of  Charles  county  from  hostile  Indian  invasion. 
He  also  protected  friendly  Indian  tribes  from  the  hos- 
tiles,  who  continually  threatened  to  exterminate  all 
Indians  friendly  to  the  white  settlers.  In  that  time 
of  stress  and  strain  he  raised  a  large  military  company 
at  his  own  expense.  In  remembrance  thereof  the  Co- 
lonial assembly  of  Maryland  voted  to  Capt.  Brandt 
several  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  as  a  part  refund 
for  money  expended  in  behalf  of  the  Commonwealth. 
To  those  of  our  kindred  who  feel  inclined  to  consult 
"Maryland  Archives"  in  the  Library  of  Congress 
will  find  on  page  357,  vol.  17  the  following:  "Capt 
Randolph  Brandt,  precept :  to  protect  the  towns  of 
Charles  county.  His  course  of  diplomacy  and  devo- 
tion to  duty  characterized  Capt.  Brandt's  career  in 
Maryland,  and  mark  him  as  one  of  her  noblest  found- 
ers of  colonial  families."  I  copied  a  part  of  his  will 
in  the  Land  Office  at  Annapolis.  He  left  four  hun- 
dred pounds  English  money  to  the  minister  who  would 
officiate  at  his  funeral  exercises.  He  divided  lands 
and  slaves  between  his  heirs,  also  spoons  and  silver 
and  gold  cups,  and  made  provision  for  the  education 
of  his  minor  children.  There  were  five  Latimers  who 
took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Gen.  Washington's  cause 
with  several  of  other  families,  sons-in-law  and  near 
kindred.  It  is  well  to  copy  here  this  oath  of  allegi- 
ance, as  taken  from  records  in  Colonial  Hall,  D.  A.  R. 
documents  in  Washington  city:  "1  do  swear  I  do  not 
hold  myself  bound  to  yield  any  allegiance  or  obedience 
to  the  king  of  Great  Britain,  his  heirs  and  his  succes- 
sors; that  I  will  be  true  and  faithful  to  the  State  of 
Maryland,  and  will,  to  the  utmost  of  my  power,  sup- 
port, maintain  and  defend  the  freedom  and  independ- 
ence thereof,  and  the  government  as  now  established, 
against  all  open  enemies  and  traitorous  conspiracies 
and  will  use  my  utmost  endeavors  to  disclose  and  make 
known  to  the  governor  or  to  some  one  of  the  justices 

23 


or  judges  thereof,  all  treasons  or  traitorous  conspira- 
cies, attempts  or  combinations  against  the  State  or 
Government  thereof  which  may  come  to  my  knowl- 
edge.   So  help  me  God." 

Both  of  my  Maryland  great  grandfathers  took  that 
oath.  Both  served  under  General  Washington,  who 
lived  across  the  Potomac  river,  in  sight.  Several  of 
my  great  uncles  took  the  same  oath.  One  was  a  major 
in  the  Revolutionary  army,  who  willed  his  valuable 
sword  to  his  daughter's  son  and  his  namesake,  pro- 
vided he  (the  youth)  should  serve  his  government 
with  loyalty  and  patriotism.  This  brave  old  kinsman 
died  in  1801,  only  surviving  his  great  general,  Wash- 
ington, barely  one  year.  His  will,  recorded  in  La 
Plata  courthouse,  Charles  county,  covers  seven  mam- 
moth pages,  and  these  pages  are  nearly  or  quite  two 
feet  square.  In  this  will  he  bequeaths  his  part  of 
"Three  Brothers"  to  his  son,  Philip.  In  the  will  of 
Richard  Marshall  (1750)  a  part  of  "Three  brothers" 
was  given  to  his  son,  and  his  riding  saddle  and  wear- 
ing apparel  to  his  beloved  brother,  William  Marshall 
(my  grandmother's  father).  And  William  Marshall's 
part  of  "Three  Brothers,"  passed  to  her,  when  he 
died  intestate  in  1793.  Each  of  these  three  brothers 
owned  a  part  of  a  tract  called  "Point  St.  William" 
in  addition  to  "Three  Brothers." 

The  Fendalls  of  Maryland  were  related  to  these 
Marshalls,  as  John  Fendall  owned  a  part  of  "Three 
Brothers,"  also  a  part  of  Point  Marshall.  Thomas 
Hanson  Marshall  owned  a  part  of  "Marshall's  Ad- 
venture." 

Among  the  early  Maryland  settlers  appears  the 
name  of  Ann  Marshall,  1641 ;  Richard  Marshall,  1658  ; 
Rebecca  Marshall,  1643 ;  William,  1640,  and  another 
Richard,  1646.  These  arrived  in  Maryland  before  the 
advent  of  the  Brandts.  There  is  recorded  an  early 
settler,  1645,  belonging  to  Latimer  family. 

The  Bealls,  who  intermarried  with  the  Marshalls, 
two  of  them  marrying  my  grandmother's  sisters,  sold 
their  plantations  in  1793,  preparing  to  move  to  Geor- 
gia— one  as  late  as  1803.  Emigration  was  afterwards 
heavy  toward  Georgia. 

24 


"The  Yazoo  Fraud,"  of  which  I  have  written  else- 
where, and  more  fully  had  been  exposed  and  finally 
settled  by  Congress,  which  opened  up  a  vast  territory 
of  fine  lands,  well  watered,  reaching  from  the  Oconee 
river  to  the  Mississippi  river  and  these  lands  having 
been  cleared  of  all  difficulty  as  to  government  title, 
became  exceedingly  attractive  to  Virginians  and 
Marylanders.  As  a  rule  they  were  slave  owners  and 
they  sought  more  land  to  expand  their  agricultural 
pursuits,  and  many  of  those  of  whom  I  have  here 
written,  sold  out  and  undertook  the  long  overland 
journey  with  only  wagons  and  carts  for  their  neces- 
sary transportation.  Many  North  Carolinians  were 
also  seized  with  this  moving  fever,  and  among  them 
we  can  place  all  of  my  great-grandparents,  parental 
and  maternal  on  both  sides  of  the  house. 

It  must  have  given  my  grandmother  Rebecca  Mar- 
shall Latimer,  a  pang  of  regret  to  vacate  the  beauti- 
ful Marshall  Hall  on  the  Potomac  river,  owned  by  her 
family  for  nearly  two  hundred  years,  and  to  start 
southward  across  three  states,  to  find  a  home  at  last  in 
the  wilds  of  Georgia,  in  Warren  county.  The  little 
seven-year-old  boy  (my  father)  has  often  told  his 
daughters  of  crossing  the  Potomac  river  on  a  flat-boat. 
The  family  left  behind  them  the  splendid  brick  resi- 
dence, the  capacious  barn  and  outbuildings,  all  built 
of  brick,  perfectly  sound  and  useful  at  this  present 
time,  a  home  of  former  wealth  and  luxury,  to  advent- 
ure life,  fortune  and  happiness  in  a  sparsely  settled 
country,  fully  half  of  which  was  still  inhabited  by 
red  Indians.  They  had  also  to  leave  the  graves  of 
their  kindred  in  the  cemetery  which  is  still  enclosed 
at  Marshall  Hall  and  full  of  Marshall  dead.  But 
there  is  a  record  on  a  gravestone  showing  that  a 
Thomas  Hanson  Marshall  was  an  owner  and  buried 
there  as  late  as  1843,  with  an  inscription  signed  by  his 
beloved  wife,  who  then  survived  him.  There  are  in- 
scriptions showing  this  burial  place  of  Marshalls  as 
early  as  1680,  and  there  are  living  kinspeople,  who 
tell  of  a  visit  to  this  old  family  home  and  still  owned 
by  relatives  as  late  as  1872  and  1880. 

25 


It  is  now  the  property  of  the  Potomac  Boat  Com- 
pany, and  as  before  stated,  transformed  into  a  great 
recreation  pleasure  grounds,  where  the  residents  of 
the  National  Capitol  are  delighted  to  assemble  on 
every  fair  day  in  the  summer  time  with  pleasant 
weather,  beautiful  river  trip  and  outing. 

In  Georgia  there  are  many  of  the  descendants  of 
those  Marshalls,  Brandts,  Bealls  and  Latimers,  all  of 
whom  are  more  or  less  familiar  with  Charles  county, 
Maryland,  traditions  and  memories,  among  them  the 
Gunbys,  the  Latimers,  the  Bealls,  the  Glenns,  the 
Furlows,  the  Hollingsworths  and  others  that  I  fail  to 
remember  at  this  writing.  Before  leaving  the  subject 
of  Maryland's  kindred,  it  is  a  matter  of  history  that 
James  Latimer  and  Mary  Brandt,  daughter  of  Capt. 
Eandolph  Brandt,  were  entrusted  with  the  guardian- 
ship and  care  of  two  Fairfax  orphans.  Lawrence 
"Washington  married  a  Fairfax,  and  you  can  find  the 
following  in  ' '  Sidelights  on  Maryland  History, ' '  page 
315.  "In  the  absence  of  Parish  registers  or  complete 
early  Charles  county  records,  the  exact  relation  of  the 
Latimers  and  other  Charles  county  families  is  not  ex- 
actly proven,  but  the  fact  that  John  Fairfax  left  his 
minor  children,  Ann  and  William,  to  live  with  James 
Latimer  and  the  close  ties  shown  in  the  records  to 
have  existed  between  the  families,  imply  kinship. 
John  Fairfax  was  the  earliest  of  the  Charles  county 
Fairfax  family,  many  years  before  Lord  Fairfax 
became  identified  with  Maryland."  James  Latimer, 
herein  named,  had  a  family  home  called  "Maycock's 
Rest,"  which  descended  to  my  great  grandfather. 

In  this  compilation  of  genealogical  data  of  family 
history  my  main  object  has  been  to  give  information  to 
surviving  kinspeople  and  also  in  a  general  way  to 
show  to  our  readers  how  Georgia  was  settled  in  the 
early  years  of  the  19th  century. 

This  influx  of  cultivated  people  from  states  that 
had  superior  advantages  in  wealth  and  culture,  gave 
Georgia  an  uplift  that  was  felt  in  many  different  ways 
to  the  immense  benefit  of  the  English  settlers  who  had 
come  over  with  General  Oglethorpe  seeking  a  refuge 
from  autocracy  and  royal  mandates,  the  victims  of  op- 

26 


pressive  laws  and  debtors  who  were  thus  released 
from  prison  bounds.  The  first  ten  governors  of 
Georgia  were  English  born.  Archibald  Bullock,  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt's  ancestor,  came  from  S.  Carolina, 
Gov.  George  Walton  was  born  in  Virginia,  Stephen 
Heard  came  from  Ireland,  Lyman  Hall,  Connecticut; 
Samuel  Elbert,  South  Carolina  in  1740;  Telfair, 
Scotland,  1735;  George  Matthews  from  Virginia,  he 
who  wrecked  a  magnificent  military  and  legislative 
record  by  affiliation  with  the  "Yazoo  Swindle."  Jared 
Irwin,  he  who  signed  the  rescinding  act  of  the  Yazoo 
law,  seems  to  have  been  a  native  Georgian.  Gen. 
James  Jackson  and  the  ancestors  of  Gov.  Milledge 
came  to  Georgia  from  England.  Peter  Early  came  to 
Georgia  in  1795  or  6  from  Virginia,  one  of  those  who 
emigrated  with  great  numbers  from  Maryland  and 
Virginia.  Matthew  Talbot,  my  mother's  kinsman, 
and  a  lineal  descendant  of  Capt.  Matthew  Talbot,  dis- 
tinguished in  Revolutionary  war,  was  born  in  Vir- 
ginia and  moved  to  Georgia  in  1785.  Governors 
Clarke  and  Rabun  came  from  upper  North  Carolina. 
Gov.  Troup  was  a  native  Georgian,  elected  in  1823. 
Forsyth  was  a  Virginian,  also  Wilson  Lumpkin,  born 
in  1783.  Wm.  Schley,  elected  in  1835,  was  a  native 
of  Maryland.  Afterwards  native-born  governors  were 
the  rule  and  not  the  exception  in  the  gubernatorial 
chair  of  Georgia.  Rev.  Hope  Hull  was  born  in  Mary- 
land, Rev.  Henry  Holcombe  was  born  in  Virginia, 
two  very  great  leaders  in  Methodist  and  Baptist  or- 
ganizations in  primitive  Georgia  days.  Colonel  Wm. 
Few  was  born  in  Baltimore  county,  Maryland,  in 
1748,  a  magnificent  Indian  fighter  in  Georgia.  He  was 
United  States  Senator  from  Georgia  in  1793.  Gover- 
nor Matthew  Talbot  filled  the  office  of  Governor  with 
credit  to  himself  and  to  the  family.  My  maternal 
grandmother  was  Lucy  Talbot  with  a  direct  line  to 
Capt,  MattheAv  Talbot  of  Virginia  and  a  kinswoman 
of  Governor  Talbot  who  settled  in  Wilkes  county  in 
1785,  afterwards  removing  to  Oglethorpe  county  in 
Georgia.  In  White's  miscellainies  it  is  recorded  "He 
died  on  17th  Sept.,  1827,  aged  60  years,  leaving  be- 
hind him  the  character  of  an  honest  and  patriotic  citi- 

27 


zen. "  In  "Men  of  Mark,"  compiled  by  ex-Gov. 
Northen,  we  hear  more  of  Gov.  Talbot.  The  State  of 
Georgia  fitly  perpetuated  his  memory  by  naming  one 
of  her  counties  for  him.  I  remember  hearing  Hon. 
Alexander  Stephens  speak  of  the  lofty  integrity  of 
Matthew  Talbot,  as  one  of  Georgia's  most  patriotic 
citizens. 

My  maternal  grandfather  was  Thomas  Swift,  a 
member  of  one  of  Georgia's  very  excellent  families 
that  settled  in  Morgan  county  after  the  Revolution. 
My  grandfather  was  the  eldest  of  four  brothers,  and 
married  Lucy  Talbot  near  the  year  1810.  His  father 
was  a  planter  and  slave  owner,  and  tradition  has  it 
that  the  Swifts  and  Talbots  emigrated  from  Virginia 
after  the  Revolutionary  war  and  obtained  lands  on 
Sandy  creek  in  Morgan  county,  which  their  descend- 
ants owned  for  at  least  a  hundred  years.  The  next 
brother  was  Dr.  Elias  Swift  who  married  a  sister  of 
Major  Taylor,  of  Athens,  Ga.,  who  was  a  practicing 
physician  and  died  in  Madison,  Ga.,  when  a  young 
man.  The  succeeding  brother,  Dr.  John  Swift,  mar- 
ried in  early  life  a  sister  of  Messrs.  John  and  Stewart 
Floyd,  of  Newton  county.  She  died,  leaving  two  chil- 
dren, one  of  them  the  late  Mr.  E.  S.  Swift,  of  Colum- 
bus, who  has  surviving  children.  Dr.  John  Swift  was 
married  the  second  time  to  Miss  Mary  Ann  Harris,  a 
sister  of  Hon  Y.  L.  G.  Harris,  one  of  Georgia's  noted 
philanthropists.  She  became  the  mother  of  a  large 
family  of  children,  being  left  a  widow  when  the  most 
of  them  were  small.  Mrs.  Mary  Ann  Swift  lived  to  be 
nearly  one  hundred  years  old.  Mr.  William  Augus- 
tine Swift  married  a  Miss  Keller,  of  Abbeville,  South 
Carolina,  and  two  of  his  sons,  Thomas  and  John,  are 
still  living  in  Elbert  county,  while  the  aged  widow  is 
nearing  the  century  mile  stone  and  is  still  a  very  re- 
markable woman  of  the  olden  time.  This  longevity  is 
worth  mentioning  as  in  striking  contrast  to  the  fragil- 
ity of  more  modern  women.  There  were  two  sisters  of 
this  early  Swift  family,  Mrs.  Mary  Darden  and  Mrs. 
Bethenia  Lewis,  who  also  raised  large  families. 

My  Maryland  grandmother  died  several  years  be- 
fore I  was  born,  so  it  was  my  Georgia  grandmother, 

28 


Mrs.  Lucy  Talbot  Swift,  around  whom  my  early  rec- 
ollections cluster  and  are  well  remembered  up  to  this 
good  time.  I  was  often  at  her  home  (which  she  in- 
herited, and  was  her  father's  early  residence)  and  I 
was  a  close  observer  of  her  housekeeping  methods  and 
of  her  abounding  hospitality.  The  mother  of  eleven 
children,  all  reaching  maturity,  except  two  that  lived 
to  eleven  and  twelve  years,  her  industry,  her  manage- 
ment and  her  executive  ability  in  caring  for  and  carry- 
ing on  her  household  affairs  are  still  wonderful  memo- 
ries, and  have  continually  lingered  with  me  as  exam- 
ples in  the  progress  of  my  own  extended  life.  It  was 
a  fine  specimen  of  a  Southern  planter's  family  and 
home  in  ante-bellum  times.  Grandfather  had  a  plan- 
tation, a  grain  mill  and  saw  mill,  which  kept  him  busy 
with  his  own  duties  as  a  provider,  but  it  was  grand- 
mother's skill  as  a  home-maker,  with  an  eye  single  to 
her  domestic  duties  and  diligent  attention  to  home 
economies,  that  impressed  me  most  in  that  early  time 
of  my  life  when  I  trotted  around  after  her  as  she 
went  from  the  dwelling  to  the  garden,  and  to  the  milk 
dairy,  to  the  poultry  house,  to  the  loom  house,  to  the 
big  meat  house,  where  rations  were  issued  once  a  day, 
and  to  the  flour  and  meal  house  where  there  was  al- 
ways a  superabundance  of  supplies  for  white  and  col- 
ored. She  had  fowls  of  all  domestic  kinds  to  look  after 
and  there  were  fattening  pigs  in  the  pen  also.  She 
had  geese  to  raise  feathers  for  the  family  beds,  be- 
cause there  were  no  mattresses  in  that  early  time. 
When  one  of  the  children  married  there  was  a  sub- 
stantial outfit  prepared  to  set  them  up  for  limited 
housekeeping.  There  were  no  such  things  as  "com- 
forts" eighty  years  ago,  but  quilt  making  was  never 
interrupted,  winter  or  summer,  and  in  early  Georgia 
homes  woolen  "coverlids"  woven  at  home,  and  quilts 
innumerable,  made  by  hand,  were  the  bed  coverings 
in  all  such  well-to-do  Georgia  homes.  I  distinctly  re- 
member that  my  own  mother  made  and  quilted  with 
her  own  nimble  fingers,  fifty  good,  serviceable  and 
good  looking  quilts  in  the  first  ten  years  of  her  mar- 
ried life.  In  that  early  time,  before  there  was  a  rail- 
road in  Georgia,  our  own  home  became  a  regular  stop- 

29 


ping  place  for  travelers  and  there  was  urgent  need 
for  beds  that  could  meet  the  demand  when  people 
traveled  from  Savannah  and  regions  lower  down 
south  even  to  Nashville,  Tenn.,  going  north,  and  after 
stage  coaches  were  set  going  the  coach  expense  was  so 
great  at  ten  cents  a  mile,  that  the  bulk  of  the  travel 
was  still  made  in  carriages,  carts,  gigs  and  on  horse- 
back. In  event  of  stormy  weather  these  travelers  were 
often  detained  at  our  house.  Sometimes  floods  in 
rivers  and  washed-out  roads  intercepted  travel.  All 
mules  and  horses  and  hogs  brought  into  the  state  were 
driven  from  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  as  there  was  no 
railroad  in  Georgia  to  furnish  markets  in  southeastern 
Georgia.  When  my  grandmother,  Lucy  Swift,  began 
housekeeping,  wool  and  flax  were  the  dependence  of 
housekeepers  for  clothing  their  families.  Silk  culture 
was  exploited  in  Gen.  Oglethorpe's  time,  but  the  use 
of  cotton  was  handicapped.  Before  there  were  any 
cotton  gins  the  cotton  lint  was  picked  from  the  seed 
by  human  fingers.  The  lint  was  then  carded  by  hand, 
spun  on  home  made  wheels,  then  reeled  into  what  were 
called  "hanks,"  by  use  of  home-made  reels,  then  the 
warp  was  prepared  for  the  home-made  loom,  by  a 
variety  of  processes,  all  tedious  and  slow  and  all  the 
work  done  by  the  house  mother  and  her  helpers.  The 
thread  was  "sized"  with  a  thin  corn  meal  mush,  then 
rolled  on  to  home-made  corn-cob  spools  from  these 
stiffened  "hanks,"  then  the  spools  were  carefully 
placed  and  manipulated  on  warping  bars,  then  rolled 
on  the  beam  of  the  loom,  then  drawn  thread  by  thread 
into  the  "harness,"  keeping  exact  count  of  each 
thread,  one  to  go  up  and  another  to  go  down  when  the 
treadles  were  moved  by  the  weaver's  foot,  then  care- 
fully pulled  through  what  was  called  a  "sley,"  fash- 
ioned from  canes  gathered  in  swamps.  After  all  this 
was  performed  the  soft  spun  thread  for  "filling"  was 
carefully  transferred  to  small  spools  that  were  fitted 
into  ' '  shuttles. ' '  The  warp  being  thus  made  ready  for 
the  weaver's  shuttle,  the  process  of  cloth  making  was 
nearly  accomplished,  so  the  weaver  pressed  one  treadle 
with  her  right  foot  and  rushed  the  shuttle  through, 
then  pressing  the  other  treadle  with  her  other  foot,  she 

30 


again  dashed  the  shuttle  back  again,  each  time  beat- 
ing up  the  "filling"  by  fierce  muscular  strength  in 
her  arms.  In  this  slow,  tedious,  intricate  and  nerve- 
racking  and  painstaking  way  all  the  wearing  apparel 
of  the  masses  was  constructed.  Well-to-do  men  gen- 
erally contrived  to  get  a  broadcloth  coat,  maybe  once 
in  a  lifetime.  The  rest  had  coats  of  plain  jeans.  Silk 
dresses  were  scarce  and  with  scanty  lengths  and  they 
were  only  worn  occasionally,  at  weddings  or  brilliant 
occasions.  A  "Leghorn  bonnet"  would  last  a  woman 
a  lifetime,  and  kid  slippers  were  the  fashionable  and 
expensive  footwear  of  the  belles  of  the  period.  The 
shoe  problem  was  an  immense  proposition  and  the 
hides  were  generally  tanned  in  dug-out  troughs, 
stretched  out,  dressed  and  dried  at  home.  The  travel- 
ing shoemaker  made  periodic  visits  and  one  pair  of 
shoes  per  annum  was  considered  a  liberal  provision 
for  grown-ups.  Suffice  to  say  the  children  as  a  rule 
all  went  barefooted  summer  and  winter,  and  how  re- 
markable they  were  for  good  health  and  lusty  frame, 
and  their  longevity  was  astonishing.  And  this  per- 
plexing shoe-making  problem  lasted  a  long  time.  I 
recall  with  vivid  memory  the  first  time  the  family 
shoe-maker  measured  my  feet  for  a  pair  of  shoes.  He 
brought  along  a  piece  of  white  pine  board,  and  I  stood 
flat-footed  on  the  board,  while  he  marked  a  line  in 
front  of  my  toes  with  his  big  coarse  horn-handled 
knife.  Then  he  marked  another  line  behind  my  heel 
and  cautioned  me  that  I  must  not  draw  my  toes  to- 
gether or  try  to  crumple  up  the  bottom  of  my  foot. 
I  felt  quite  a  somebody  when  the  new  shoes  came  home 
and  I  had  liberty  to  lay  aside  the  red-morocco  baby 
shoes  to  which  I  had  been  accustomed.  Stumped  toes 
in  summer  and  cracked  heels  in  winter  were  always 
in  evidence  with  pupils  during  my  school  days,  when 
the  country  child  had  a  log  cabin  for  a  school  room 
and  "puncheon"  benches  for  seats,  and  the  farmer 
boys  and  girls  of  the  rural  neighborhood  wore  coarse 
home-fashioned  clothes  spun  and  woven  in  looms  at 
home.  Towels,  table  cloths  and  shirts  were  made  in 
the  same  slow  way,  and  even  the  "best-fixed"  families 
were  glad  to  use  "thrums"  for  towels  and  soft  soap 

31 


in  a  gourd  to  wash  hands,  and  the  family  had  a  shelf 
for  the  wash  basin  outside  for  young  and  old. 

In  the  rough,  country-made  looms,  the  last  ends  of 
the  warp  were  cut  loose  and  the  warp  made  slack  and 
thin,  so  these  rough  sleazy  lengths  were  only  good  for 
towels  and  wash  clothes.  The  old  timers  called  them 
"thrums,"  and  the  modern  factories  call  them  "mill 
ends."  All  the  men's  wear  was  woven  at  home,  coats 
and  pants,  and  the  wool  was  grown  on  the  farms  and 
picked  of  cockelburrs  by  hand,  spun  and  woven  just 
as  cotton  and  flax  cloth  was  fashioned.  Men's  socks 
were  home  knitted  of  woolen  thread  (they  generally 
went  sockless  in  summer)  and  overcoats  were  an  un- 
known quantity.  Grandfather  Swift  owned  and  wore 
a  blue  camlet  cloak,  with  a  cape  on  it.  It  was  a  family 
treasure,  perhaps  it  was  an  heirloom.  Grandmother 
owned  a  woolen  shawl  made  up  North.  In  cold 
weather  the  women  folk  used  the  shawl  if  they  had  to 
go  on  an  outside  trip.  But  the  homespun  clothes  were 
warm  and  enduring.  My  mother  and  grandmother 
had  "bed-gowns,"  short  affairs  when  I  was  a  child, 
and  the  young  women  had  chemises  and  bare  arms  for 
nightly  repose.  Home-made  sun  bonnets  were  always 
in  evidence.  A  pretty  white  complexion  was  the  call 
of  that  period.  The  young  women  were  emphatic  on 
this  line.  They  were  constantly  busy,  often  with 
cloth  making  work,  but  they  were  scrupulous  in  care 
of  the  skin.  They  wore  gloves  for  washing  dishes 
or  when  washing  clothes.  ' '  Tomboy ' '  girls  were  some- 
times encountered,  but  the  belles  of  Georgia  enjoyed 
beautiful  complexions.  They  also  laced  very  tight, 
and  it  was  fashionable  to  faint  on  occasions.  Wed- 
dings were  sumptuous  affairs.  When  my  mother 
married  there  was  a  crowded  wedding  at  night  and 
three  more  days  of  festivities,  with  a  different  dress 
for  each  day.  "Infairs"  were  popular,  where  the 
wedding  spreads  were  transferred  to  the  groom's 
home.  Everything  good  to  eat  was  bountifully  furn- 
ished, meats  in  abundance,  all  sorts  of  home  collec- 
tions and  concoctions  topped  off  with  pound-cake  and 
syllabub.  There  was  always  a  sideboard  where  gin, 
rum  and  peach  brandy  held  distinction.     Loaf  sugar 

32 


brought  from  Charleston  and  Augusta  by  wagons  was 
uniformly  present.  I  can  remember  with  accurate 
recollection  those  beautiful  snowy  cones  of  white  su- 
gar encased  in  thick  bluish-green  papers,  that  were 
always  in  request  when  company  came,  and  the  side- 
board drinks  were  set  forth  in  generous  array.  "Peach 
and  honey ' '  was  in  reach  of  everybody  that  prided  in 
their  home.  Those  primitive  farmers  had  abounding 
peach  orchards  and  bee-hives  were  generally  in  evi- 
dence more  or  less  on  Georgia  farms.  Everything  to 
eat  and  to  wear  that  could  be  grown  at  home  was  dili- 
gently cultivated  and  the  early  fortunes  of  Georgians 
were  promoted  by  such  thrift,  economy  and  conserva- 
tion of  resources.  In  the  summer  time  the  drying  of 
fruit  was  diligently  pursued,  and  it  was  a  poor  and 
thriftless  domicile  which  failed  to  supply  itself  with 
dried  peaches,  apples,  cherries,  pears,  etc.  My  care- 
ful grandmother  put  up  bushels  of  dried  white  Eng- 
lish peaches  of  which  she  often  made  family  preserves 
for  home  consumption  in  the  scarcer  spring-time.  In 
this  present  emergency  of  war  strenuosity  the  remem- 
brance of  those  affluent  households  with  always  some- 
thing good  to  cook  inside,  and  no  stint  anywhere  in 
big-house  or  negro  cabin,  appeals  to  me  with  most  sug- 
gestive force.  The  present  generation  lives  in  paper 
sack  supplies.  They  buy  everything  in  paper  sacks, 
from  a  goober-pea  to  a  small  sack  of  meal,  when  every- 
body knows  the  soil  will  yield  a  superabundance  of 
good  eatables  if  it  is  only  "tickled  with  a  hoe."  I 
plead  guilty.  I  am  now  buying  peaches  (July)  at 
thirty  cents  a  dozen,  when  I  might  be  handling  the 
fruit  from  that  many  peach  trees  planted  on  my  own 
waste  ground  and  with  a  minimum  of  expense  in  the 
care  of  them. 

My  grandmother  made  all  the  starch  she  used,  some- 
times from  whole  wheat,  oftener  from  wheat  bran. 
Her  seven  girls,  big  and  little,  delighted  in  dainty 
white  muslin  frocks,  and  laundry  work  for  thirteen  in 
family  was  always  going  on,  and  insistent  in  that  large 
household.  She  was  a  rare  soap  maker  and  every 
pound  was  prepared  at  home  with  diligent  care.  The 
meat  scraps  and  bones  were  utilized  and  cooked  with 

33 


lye,  drained  in  ash-hoppers.  It  made  perfect  soap  for 
domestic  uses.  Hard  soap  was  prepared  for  the  big 
house  in  various  ways,  tempered  with  age  and  used 
by  young  and  old  alike.  For  wounds  and  baby  usage 
there  could  be  bought  Castile  soap,  but  the  soaps  of 
the  multitudes  were  prepared  at  home.  Except  salt, 
iron,  sugar  and  coffee,  everything  was  raised  by  those 
early  Georgia  planters  necessary  for  human  comfort 
and  sustenance.  Coffee  was  scarce  and  high,  some- 
times a  Sunday  morning  luxury,  and  brown  sugar  was 
generally  used,  the  exception  being  the  beautiful  loaf 
sugar  brought  from  the  North.  The  family  loom  was 
kept  going  from  Monday  morning  until  Saturday 
night.  My  grandmother's  home  was  a  two-story  frame 
dwelling  also  with  a  brick  basement,  largely  above 
ground.  In  that  brick  basement  there  were  three  spa- 
cious rooms.  The  principal  room  was  used  for  the 
family  meals,  with  capacious  fireplace  and  safes  sta- 
tioned around  the  wall.  In  these  safes  or  cupboards 
there  was  storage  room  for  all  sorts  of  domestic  sup- 
plies. The  middle  room  was  the  "loom  room,"  the 
third  was  the  kitchen,  with  wide  hearth,  cranes  in  the 
chimney  for  hanging  pots  and  kettles.  (I  never  saw 
a  cook  stove  until  I  was  grown)  These  rooms  had 
brick  floors  and  were  well  ventilated.  My  grandmoth- 
er had  an  easy  chair  in  the  dining  room  and  the  coffee 
and  tea  were  made  under  her  direction.  She  super- 
vised the  cooking  in  her  kitchen  and  that  cloth-making 
business  went  on  exactly  where  she  could  overlook  it. 
The  colored  women  were  always  busy  and  likewise  the 
mistress.  The  daughters  were  taught  to  spin  and 
weave,  to  knit  and  sew,  and  to  overlook  the  dairy,  etc., 
as  the  mother  directed.  There  was  plenty  of  work 
for  all  because  a  large  slave  family  had  to  be  clothed 
from  that  busy  loom,  and  the  cloth  was  to  be  cut  out 
and  made  into  garments  as  soon  as  woven,  and  that 
large  house  was  to  be  kept  in  "apple-pie  order." 

And  the  abounding  hospitality !  My  grandfather  was 
a  deacon  in  the  Baptist  church  at  Sandy  Creek  church 
and  the  Saturday  and  Sunday  meeting  days  always 
brought  friends  and  neighbors  for  at  least  one  meal, 
many  to  spend  the  night.    My  mother  said  it  looked 

34 


like  a  camp  meeting  when  the  kinspeople,  the  neigh- 
bors, the  beaux  and  girl  friends  alighted  from  their 
horses  and  the  crowd  collected  in  the  house.  Servants 
carried  the  riding  saddles  into  the  harness  room  in 
the  barn  yard.  The  daughters  prepared  the  Saturday 
big  dinner  while  grandmother  went  to  conference 
meeting.  On  Sunday  grandmother  supervised  the 
big  Sunday  dinner  and  the  girls  mounted  the  riding 
horses,  wore  their  best  dresses,  and  went  to  church, 
and,  as  was  the  custom  of  the  time,  there  was  a  lot 
of  courting  going  on  when  the  beaux  rode  home  with 
the  girls  they  were  inclined  to  marry.  It  would  take 
the  genius  of  a  Judge  Longstreet  to  faithfully  picture 
what  took  place  on  these  big  meeting  days,  after  the 
congregation  vacated  the  meeting  house.  Sometimes 
an  unlucky  swain  would  find  himself  "cut  out"  as 
a  shrewd  fellow  would  often  mount  his  own  horse  and 
watch  his  rival  as  he  led  the  young  lady  to  the  horse 
block  to  mount  her  steed,  and  before  the  latter  could 
untie  his  nag  and  start  the  shrewd  fellow  was  can- 
tering off  with  the  girl.  In  some  old  books  that  I  read 
with  delight  in  the  long  ago,  it  was  told  how  the 
young  swain  would  hold  out  his  hand,  the  beautiful 
girl  would  place  her  left  foot  in  his  hand  and  he 
would  swing  her  up  to  the  saddle  with  a  skilful  use 
of  his  muscular  strength.  That  was  not  the  early 
Georgia  style  in  the  up  country.  There  were  always 
horseblocks  prepared  for  use  at  church  and  at  home 
and  at  country  stores  to  mount  from,  and  it  accorded 
likewise  with  the  modesty  of  the  girls  and  the  timidity 
of  the  boys.  Every  woman  who  rode  horseback  had  a 
riding  skirt  made  of  substantial  home  weaving  with  a 
belt,  but  open  to  the  hem.  These  riding  skirts  pro- 
tected the  dresses  and  were  in  universal  use  when  my 
mother  and  grandmother  were  young.  After  I  came 
along,  also  a  horseback  rider  until  I  was  seventy  years 
old,  I  owned  once  or  twice  a  riding  habit,  but  I  had 
my  early  training  with  my  mother's  riding  skirt  and 
side  saddle.  I  began  to  ride  at  six  years  old  and  one 
of  the  proudest  days  of  my  life  came  along  when  my 
father  slackened  his  firm  hold  on  my  pony's  bridle  and 
let  me  go  alone  to  manage  for  myself.     To  this  de- 

35 


lightful  and  frequent  horseback  exercise  I  attribute 
much  of  the  vigor  of  my  later  life.  It  is  essentially  a 
delicate  woman's  opportunity  for  healthful  recreation 
and  it  never  lost  its  charm  for  me  even  when  I  became 
a  grandmother,  for  I  could  canter  over  the  fields  and 
farm  lands  with  perfect  freedom,  assured  of  my  abil- 
ity to  manage  my  horse.  I  always  had  some  sort  of 
a  horse  to  ride  up  to  old  age. 

This  universal  use  of  horses  for  men  and  women 
contributed  very  greatly  to  the  raising  of  fine  stock  in 
the  early  days  of  Georgia,  and  Kentucky  furnished 
droves  of  them  to  supply  any  lack  at  home.  My  father 
prepared  barns  and  lots  for  such  horse  drovers  and 
they  were  sometimes  detained  for  days  by  high  water 
at  our  house.  During  one  long  period  of  detention, 
the  drover  ran  short  of  funds  and  the  horses  were 
"eating  their  heads  off."  When  starting  time  came 
he  led  out  a  fine  pony -built  horse  and  told  my  father 
he  would  give  him  the  horse  for  his  feed  bill.  Point- 
ing to  my  small  self  he  said,  "pony  will  be  a  treasure 
for  your  little  girl.  He  has  sense  like  folks,  and  is  as 
gentle  as  they  are  made."  So  I  came  into  ownership 
of  dear  old  Pony  at  a  very  early  age.  Everybody 
could  ride  him  in  the  family,  including  children.  The 
negro  boys  learned  to  plow  with  him  and  he  was  the 
dependence  for  going  to  mill,  with  a  sack  of  corn  on 
his  back  for  more  than  a  dozen  years.  When  I  mar- 
ried he  was  still  in  fine  appearance  and  doing  good 
service,  and  one  of  the  most  beloved  appurtenances 
of  the  family  home.  We  owned  also  a  twin  pair  of 
"claybank"  horses  at  one  time,  a  perfect  match, 
named  Pompey  and  Caesar,  in  my  early  girlhood  days. 
Hitched  to  a  barouche  they  sped  along  in  famous 
style,  flinging  white  manes  and  tails  to  the  breeze,  and 
it  was  perfectly  delightful  to  me  to  see  my  father  and 
mother,  mounted  on  the  "claybanks"  for  a  horseback 
ride,  and  both  were  good  riders  in  their  early  prime 
and  dearly  loved  the  sport. 

We  had  singing  schools  in  our  section  seventy-five 
years  ago,  about  the  time  I  could  be  trusted  to  ride 
Pony  and  hold  my  own  in  a  merry  crowd  of  young- 
sters.   It  was  three  miles  from  our  home  to  Macedonia 

36 


meeting  house  where  the  whole  neighborhood  gathered 
for  education  in  old  fashioned  round  and  square  note 
books,  and  where  we  closed  the  exercises  by  marching 
around  and  singing,  old  and  young,  to  the  bent  of  our 
inclinations.  We  traveled  along  a  leafy  road,  crossed 
two  or  three  clear  branches,  and  occasionally  the  big 
girls  and  boys  raced  their  horses.  This  racing  woke 
up  in  Pony's  brain  a  remembrance  of  his  "Old  Ken- 
tucky Home."  Whenever  I  saw  him  lay  back  his 
shapely  ears  and  arch  his  proud  neck  I  always 
clutched  the  horn  of  the  saddle  to  hold  on.  The  race 
was  all  right  for  the  rider  and  pony  were  in  full  ac- 
cord in  a  frolic  of  that  sort. 

In  the  long  ago  the  "stars  fell."  My  mother  saw 
the  falling.  She  often  told  me  of  it.  Uncle  William, 
the  oldest  of  Grandmother's  children,  was  to  be  mar- 
ried in  November,  1833,  to  Miss  Elizabeth  Furlow. 
The  preparation  was  immense  in  the  Swift  family, 
getting  ready  for  the  "infair."  My  mother,  as  eld- 
est daughter,  was  the  mainstay  of  her  mother  and  they 
were  working  far  into  the  night  with  some  sewing  for 
the  children  of  that  large  family.  There  were  blazing 
fires  in  the  living  room  and  candles  on  the  sewing 
table.  Going  out  on  the  back  porch  between  midnight 
and  day,  for  some  wood  to  replenish  the  fire,  my 
mother  saw  the  "falling  stars."  The  negroes  down 
at  the  quarter  also  witnessed  the  wonderful  sight. 
They  rushed  to  the  big  house  in  a  panic  of  fear  as 
"the  world  was  coming  to  an  end."  Soon  everybody 
was  up  and  wondering  what  would  come  next. 
Grandfather  went  out  on  the  back  porch  and  then  dis- 
covered that  no  star  ever  rested  on  the  ground.  The 
star  disappeared  and  its  light  went  out,  when  it 
reached  the  dirt.  He  therefore  quieted  the  frightened 
people  but  all  hung  about  the  big  house  until  day- 
light came.  Uncle  William  got  married  all  right  and 
raised  a  large  and  splendid  family  of  children  in 
Houston  county.  Charley  Northen  was  the  oldest 
grandson  in  that  delightful  household,  late  clerk  of 
the  Georgia  Senate  for  a  long  term  of  years.  Another 
of  the  Furlows  married  my  mother's  sister,  Harriet, 
and  Hon.  Charles  Furlow,  their  father,  married,  as  his 

37 


second  wife,  my  Aunt  Maria  Latimer,  born  in  Mary- 
land, and  my  mother  married  Maria's  brother, 
Charles,  my  father.  All  these  weddings  and  infairs 
came  along  in  rapid  succession.  Matrimony,  like  the 
measles,  is  undoubtedly  catching,  and  Grandmother 
must  have  had  a  strenuous  time  of  it,  in  getting  feath- 
er beds,  quilts,  bed  linen,  china  and  silver  spoons  for 
the  newly  wed,  as  their  lawful  marriage  portion. 
Grandfather,  with  lofty  impartiality  set  down  in  a 
book  what  he  gave  as  a  marriage  portion  to  each  of 
his  children,  and  my  mother  was  fond  of  telling  us, 
how  rich  she  felt  when  he  made  his  first  visit  to  her, 
bringing  a  set  of  mahogany  furniture,  the  household 
effects  before  noted,  along  with  an  excellent  servant 
woman  and  a  fine  saddle  horse.  "When  I  arrived  on 
the  stage  of  action,  Agnes,  the  servant  woman,  was 
ready  to  nurse  and  love  the  little  new  comer,  which 
strong  affection  remained  intact  as  long  as  she  lived. 
En  passant.  I  own  two  of  those  early  silver  teaspoons 
that  were  in  use  for  my  comfort  eighty-two  years  ago, 
also  two  tablespoons,  part  of  a  set  given  by  my  father 
to  his  bride,  with  their  united  initials  engraved  there- 
on. In  those  days  there  was  not  much  to  be  bought 
but  whatever  was  purchased  was  sterling  and  lasting. 
I  remember  well  the  china  plates.  In  the  centre  was 
painted  a  lovely  pink  rose  also  a  delicate  border.  When 
I  was  uncommonly  good  I  had  my  molasses  on  one  of 
these  precious  plates,  and  as  I  sopped  my  biscuit 
across  I  contrived  to  get  a  continuous  good  look  at  the 
centre  rose  until  the  lunch  was  concluded.  My  educa- 
tion in  art,  although  very  limited,  was  early  begun. 

It  required  a  day  and  a  half  to  make  the  annual 
journey  by  gig  or  barouche  to  Grandmother's  house, 
one  night  of  lodging  to  be  secured  on  the  trip.  I 
might  go  to  California  or  Europe  nowadays  with 
fewer  thrills  and  expectations,  and  a  globe  trotter 
might  envy  the  delight  that  pervaded  my  soul  when 
we  came  in  sight  of  the  dear  Grandmother's  home, 
and  when  the  aunties  snatched  me  to  themselves  and 
kissed  and  petted  me  to  my  heart's  content.  Blessed 
are  the  grandchildren  that  can  go  on  such  annual 
journeys  and  revel  as  I  did  in  such  pure  affection. 

38 


My  Uncle  John,  who  made  his  home  with  us  for  vari- 
ous years,  carried  me  along  to  his  wedding  with  Miss 
Elizabeth  Paxton,  when  I  was  but  a  tot,  and  from  the 
wedding  we  made  a  bridal  tour  to  see  the  grandpar- 
ents. With  the  "claybanks"  in  fine  mettle  and  my 
Sunday  best  in  wearing  and  with  my  extra  promotion 
as  a  wedding  attendant,  I  certainly  was  in  ecstasy. 
When  we  arrived  at  our  journey's  end  and  saw  the 
kinnery  swarm  out  from  piazzas  and  Grandmother 
from  the  basement,  with  her  cap  strings  flying,  and  I 
could  so  easily  connect  her  with  the  good  things  to  eat 
that  were  awaiting  our  arrival. 

There  was  in  Grandmother 's  big,  clean  yard,  a  small 
structure,  a  little  house,  mounted  on  long  legs.  It 
was  called  the  "milk  dairy,"  and  butter  and  milk 
were  kept  therein  for  immediate  use.  Besides  the 
milk  and  butter  ready  for  the  table  supply,  there  were 
pies  and  cakes  that  could  be  handed  out  to  little  folks 
when  they  were  hungry.  This  milk  dairy  was  sta- 
tioned under  an  enormous  white  oak  tree,  which  af- 
forded a  dense  and  delightful  shade  in  summer  time. 
There  was  also  a  long  bench  nearby  where  little  folks 
might  sit  and  enjoy  a  bowl  of  bread  and  milk  before 
sleepy-time  came  along.  Oh !  The  delights  of  that  old- 
fashioned  milk  dairy.  And  the  odor  of  those  pies 
and  cakes  still  visits  me  in  memory.  It  has  hardiy 
been  a  year  ago  since  Rev.  G.  A.  Nunnally,  of  Rome, 
an  octogenarian  like  myself,  lately  deceased,  and  who 
was  grandmother's  nephew  .(sister's  child)  said  to 
me:  "Do  you  ever  forget  the  wonderful  goodies  that 
Aunt  Lucy  could  hand  out  from  that  milk  dairy  when 
we  sat  on  the  bench  in  that  cool,  clean-swept  yard, 
when  we  were  little  people?"  Nor  do  I  ever  forget 
those  wonderful  beaten  biscuits  that  I  ate  for  break- 
fast along  with  rich  red  ham  gravy,  or  the  dinner-time 
experience  with  a  plateful  of  chicken  and  dumplings, 
and  also  a  generous  slice  of  pot  peach  pie,  smothered 
with  cream  and  sugar.  And  can  I  ever  forget  those 
enticing  plum  orchards  where  we  young  ones  were 
prone  to  linger  until  my  frock  would  be  so  tight  in 
the  belt  that  I  could  hardly  stand  it.  When  I  see  chil- 
dren of  the  present  time  racing  to  the  soft-drink  store, 

39 


with  every  nickel  they  possess,  and  cramming  on  the 
painted  candy  until  they  destroy  their  digestion,  I 
wish  they  could  see  what  children  had  to  eat  nearly 
a  hundred  years  ago  in  such  abundance  and  such 
truly  pure  foodstuff.  And  the  watermelon  time  beg- 
gars description.  Wagon  loads  found  their  way  into 
a  dark,  cool  cellar  and  all  that  were  not  0.  K.  went  to 
the  pigpen  when  everybody  had  liberty,  black  and 
white,  to  cut  and  eat  until  satisfied  so  long  as  the  crop 
lasted.  There  were  no  selling  places  for  such  super- 
abundance and  if  any  neighbors  failed  in  such  crops 
the  way  was  clear  to  participate  without  stint  with  the 
lucky  ones.  Home-grown  wheat,  home-raised  meat, 
home-pressed  lard,  the  whitest  corn  selected  for  meal, 
poultry  abundant  and  fresh  eggs  collected  every  day, 
and  milk,  cool  and  sweet,  with  cakes  of  yellow  sweet 
butter  and  plenty  of  colored  help  to  cook  it  all  and 
serve  it,  and  partake  bountifully  on  what  was  left 
over.  I  honestly  believe  that  Georgia  farmers  were 
the  best  fed  people  on  the  globe  in  our  ante-bellum 
days.    All  owing  to  industry  and  thrift. 

Large  families  were  the  rule,  visiting  was  constant, 
and  in  times  of  festivity  or  bereavement,  there  were 
crowds  of  willing  helpers  to  laugh  with  the  happy  or 
weep  with  the  suffering  ones.  When  my  mother  wns 
quite  small  she  soon  became  expert  with  a  needle,  and 
she  remembered  going  with  grandmother  to  neighbor 
Gov.  Wilson  Lumpkin's  home  to  a  "family  sewing." 
She  sat  in  a  high  chair  near  a  table  and  "  backstitch- 
ed"  a  seam  in  a  pair  of  men's  breeches  on  that  oc- 
casion and  I  thought  it  was  fine  when  I  could  sit  in 
my  low  chair  and  "backstitch"  seams  in  a  pair  of 
breeches  for  Uncle  Dave  who  was  our  faithful  colored 
family  fire-maker.  I  never  saw  a  sewing  machine 
until  I  was  full  grown  and  twenty  one,  but  there  was 
no  lack  of  dainty  finger  work  in  those  early  homes. 
There  is  a  revival  of  this  fine  hand-sewing  in  later 
days  and  it  is  good  fortune  to  find  somebody  with  an- 
cient experience  to  show  what  our  ante-bellum  women 
could  do  on  this  line.  Homespun  dresses  were  not  to 
be  despised  by  any  means.  Carefully  spun  and  woven 
with  indigo  dyes  and  turkey  red  to  form  a  pattern, 

40 


they  made  admirable  dress  materials,  washed  well  and 
endured  mightily.  Just  think  however  of  the  toil 
that  went  with  their  home  manufacture  when  the  cot- 
ton had  to  be  handpicked  from  the  seed  and  every 
thread,  warp  and  filling  spun  by  willing  and  pains- 
taking hands.  What  energy,  persistence  and  forti- 
tude. When  my  grandmother's  brood  of  eleven  cir- 
cled around  the  big  open  fireplace  in  the  evening, 
knitting  work  in  hand,  she  understood  without  doubt, 
that  she  must  rise  early  and  work  late,  start  before 
daylight  and  endure  until  after  dark  to  put  clothes  on 
them  and  keep  them  with  changes  and  well-fed  for 
their  health's  sake.  If  cotton  mills  and  factories  were 
blotted  out  today  is  there  sufficient  fortitude,  energy 
and  persistence  in  the  present  generation  to  conquer  a 
similar  task? 

Grandmother  raised  her  brood  in  credit  with  gen- 
teel manners  and  fine  reputation  and  her  grandchil- 
dren have  sung  her  praises  and  paid  glowing  tribute 
to  her  industry  and  fidelity.  None  of  us  are  clamoring 
for  a  return  to  the  hard  work  and  unremitting  ef- 
fort to  make  cloth  by  hand  or  do  sewing  with  fingers 
or  cook  meals  on  open  hearths  in  hot  fireplaces,  but 
I  hope  the  day  will  never  dawn  that  succeeding  gen- 
erations shall  fail  to  applaud  the  vigorous  self-sacrific- 
ing and  unfailing  industry  of  their  forbears.  Now-a- 
days  there  is  a  mania  for  spending.  In  those  earlier 
days  there  was  a  well-formed  habit  of  saving.  Therein 
lies  the  difference  between  the  new  and  the  old.  In 
the  present  generation  we  tear  down  spacious,  con- 
venient and  comfortable  church  buildings  and  re- 
place them  with  palatial  edifices  partaking  of  cathe- 
dral appearance.  The  struggle  to  compass  big  salaries 
for  the  pastorate  has  advanced  into  strenuosity.  The 
meek  and  lowly  feature  has  entirely  vanished  and 
unless  our  modern  congregations  are  out  on  dress  pa- 
rade the  mass  of  the  people  remain  at  home  on  Sun- 
days to  read  the  daily  papers  or  go  on  an  auto  ride 
to  the  most  attractive  nearby  town  or  city  for  Sab- 
bath diversion.  My  mind  reaches  back  to  the  old-time 
country  meeting  nouses  where  there  were  religious 
services  not  oftener  than  once  a  month.    Everybody 

41 


was  anxious  to  go.  It  was  a  great  time  with  children, 
negro  nurses  and  dogs.  There  was  always  a  spring  of 
good  water  close  about.  The  mothers  provided  biscuit 
and  teacakes  for  their  hungry  tribes.  A  quilt  or  shawl 
was  spread  on  the  church  floor,  the  babies  that  could 
sit  alone  were  thus  made  comfortable,  and  the 
preacher  was  in  no  wise  disturbed  by  their  various  ac- 
tivities when  the  little  pitcher  of  fresh  water  was 
brought  in  and  the  young  ones  were  duly  watered.  I 
remember  these  things  with  accuracy  because  I  own 
the  quaint  little  pitcher  that  Nurse  Agnes  carried 
along  for  my  use  and  comfort,  and  it  represents  noth- 
ing similar  in  modern  ware  as  to  shape  and  coloring. 
It  may  be  more  than  a  hundred  years  old.  I  can 
vouch  for  more  than  eighty  years  myself.  The  women 
occupied  one  half  of  the  building.  The  men  and  larg- 
er boys  kept  to  their  own  side  of  the  house.  And  the 
preacher  was  a  discourser.  He  got  but  little  as  to 
pay  and  he  expected  little,  but  he  omitted  nothing  as 
to  creed  and  doctrine  to  explain  his  views  to  the  con- 
gregation. Hard  Shell  Baptists  had  a  large  following 
in  Middle  Georgia  a  hundred  years  ago.  I  have  seen 
a  number  of  foot  washings  and  I  have  always  queried 
as  to  why  the  Saviour's  attitude  towards  the  washing 
of  His  disciples'  feet  should  have  been  abandoned  by 
any  Christian  organization.  If  His  command  as  to 
sacrament  administration  is  imperative  it  seems  to 
me  that  foot  washing  is  likewise  an  imperative  exam- 
ple. 

Some  will  ask  about  the  preacher's  pay  in  those 
early  times  ?  I  remember  well  what  was  told  by  Capt. 
Felton,  my  husband's  father,  speaking  on  this  par- 
ticular line  of  church  work  sixty  odd  years  ago.  There 
was  never,  he  said,  a  discussion,  as  there  was  no  sal- 
ary. At  one  time  in  the  history  of  Oglethorpe  county 
where  his  father  had  settled  (and  had  removed  from 
North  Carolina,  at  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  war) 
there  was  however  something  said  on  a  certain  meet- 
ing day  as  to  some  tangible  remuneration  for  the  min- 
ister's  services.  Being  as  before  said  a  delicate  sub- 
ject, there  was  considerable  hesitation  until  a  brother 
who  could  tan  leather  quite  satisfactorily  from  cattle 

42 


hides,  rose  up  and  contributed  a  pair  of  shoe  soles,  and 
another  neighbor  who  was  also  skilful  as  a  tanner, 
matched  the  proposition  by  offering  the  uppers  for 
the  preacher's  footwear.  There  the  question  halted 
for  a  spell  until  the  best  shoemaker  in  the  neighbor- 
hood agreed  to  get  the  preacher's  measure  and  would 
proceed  to  make  the  shoes  on  the  first  day  when  it  was 
too  wet  to  plow.  "And  you  young  ones  needn't 
smile,"  said  the  Captain,  who  was  a  veteran  of  the 
war  of  1812,  "for  a  man  who  owned  such  a  reliable 

pair  of  shoes  as  preacher was  given  was  very 

happy  in  such  possession."  It  is  a  good  place  to  set 
down  the  fact  that  Capt.  Felton  was  in  the  famous 
Indian  battle  of  ' '  Chalibbee ' '  when  he  was  command- 
ing Oglethorpe  county  troops,  serving  under  Gen. 
John  Floyd.  After  a  six-months  campaign  on  the 
frontiers  of  western  Georgia,  helping  to  build  Fort 
Hawkins  at  Macon,  they  went  forward  by  regular 
marches  until  there  was  a  line  of  forts  and  block 
houses  extending  from  the  Ocmulgee  to  the  Alabama 
river.  There  was  a  Fort  Mitchell  erected  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Chattahoochee  river  and  where  Antossee 
battle  was  fought,  where  the  crafty  Indians  inflicted 
heavy  loss  on  Georgia  troops. 

The  battle  of  Chalibbee  was  begun  before  daybreak 
and  in  White's  Miscellainies  you  will  find  that  the 
Indian  surprise  did  not  affect  these  brave  Georgians, 
not  a  platoon  faltered  and  Gen.  Floyd  made  a  valiant 
charge  after  daylight  and  won  the  battle.  Capt  Fel- 
ton lived  to  be  80  years  old  and  despite  his  military 
services  in  1812  and  heavy  losses  in  Civil  "War,  he  de- 
clined to  ask  for  a  pension.  He  said  "pensions  should 
be  for  those  who  were  maimed  or  wounded  in  service, 
that  every  man  owed  duties  to  his  country  in  time  of 
war  or  peace.  Those  who  were  spared  in  life  and 
limb  were  fortunate  and  should  not  be  a  burden  on  the 
community."  According  to  this  creed  and  practice, 
he  refused  to  apply  for  a  pension.  His  survivors  are 
in  possession  of  a  little  cow-leather  traveling  trunk 
that  he  could  strap  on  the  rear  of  his  saddle  by  aid  of 
iron  rings  and  in  which  he  carried  a  six  months  outfit 
for  heavy  and  exhausting  army  service,  exposed  to 

43 


Indian  attacks  day  and  night  all  the  time  he  was  ab- 
sent. He  had  a  change  of  underclothing,  a  pair  of  ex- 
tra socks,  some  writing  materials,  and  his  razor  in  this 
small  military  outfit.  One  suit  of  good,  strong,  home- 
made jeans  carried  him  through  and  he  made  no 
complaint  as  to  finding  himself  in  service  to  his  coun- 
try more  than  a  hundred  years  ago.  And  he  was  an 
officer,  better  equipped  and  mounted  than  the  pri- 
vates. 

In  his  early  time  there  were  no  banks  or  safety 
vaults  for  depositing  money.  Salt  was  one  of  the 
main  articles  of  domestic  use,  and  he  and  his  wife 
kept  an  open  salt  barrel  in  the  kitchen.  Black  and 
white  dipped  out  salt,  as  needed  for  cooking,  saving 
meat  and  for  salting  horses  and  cattle.  This  salt  bar- 
rel constructed  of  a  hollow  poplar  log  with  a  well- 
fitted  bottom,  was  always  kept  half  full  of  salt  or  over. 
Silver  money  was  the  favorite  coin  of  the  period. 
Down  at  the  bottom  of  the  salt  barrel  the  early  Fel- 
ton's  kept  their  silver  money  in  a  sack,  and  although 
they  were  accustomed  to  make  journeys  to  South  Car- 
olina and  eastern  Georgia,  they  also  made  a  safe-de- 
posit box  still  safer  by  emptying  a  fresh  sack  of  salt 
on  top  of  what  was  still  in  the  kitchen  barrel  as  a 
preparation  for  leaving  home.  No  thief  or  burglar 
ever  thought  of  finding  money  in  a  place  that  was 
never  locked  and  covered  with  salt.  There  were  no 
banks  in  those  days. 

I  wish  I  could  remember  all  he  told  of  the  early  set- 
tlers of  Oglethorpe  county,  formerly  Wilkes.  He  was 
familiar  with  his  near  neighbors,  the  Lumpkins,  and 
Gov.  Gilmer,  Rev.  George  Lumpkin  was  his  pastor  at 
Beaverdam  church  and  he  occasionally  came  to  see 
us  in  Cass  county,  now  Bartow,  when  preacher  and 
Captain  were  old  men.  After  I  married  into  the  Fel- 
ton  family  I  gathered  a  lot  of  information  as  to  the 
way  Georgia  pioneers  lived  from  such  reminiscences. 
One  of  the  stories  that  delighted  me  was  their  recollec- 
tions of  some  famous  race  horses  that  were  trained  and 
raced  at  Lexington,  Ga.  These  were  four-mile  heats 
and  sixteen  miles  to  run  to  be  declared  the  winner. 
As  I  recollect  Col.  Wade  Hampton's  medium-sized 

44 


gray  mare  was  the  best  racer  of  that  early  time. 
Money  was  staked  by  men  from  a  number  of  different 
states,  and  crowds  attended  from  all  eastern  Georgia. 

Augusta  was  the  great  market  place  a  hundred 
years  ago.  Cotton  and  wheat  were  waggoned  long  dis- 
tances to  be  sold  in  Augusta.  It  required  about  five 
days  steady  driving  from  Lexington  with  strong  teams 
to  make  the  round  trip  to  Augusta.  The  neighbors 
managed  to  go  in  large  companies,  camping  out,  with 
a  supply  of  cooked  victuals  already  prepared.  After 
the  produce  was  sold,  salt,  sugar  and  iron  were  pur- 
chased for  the  return  trip.  Store  goods  were  bought 
in  limited  quantities  for  the  women  at  home  with  an 
occasional  bonnet  and  slippers.  Calico  was  scarcer 
than  silk  velvet  at  the  present  time,  and  the  stuff 
which  was  laid  in  for  a  coming  baby's  Sunday  frock 
was  called  Leno,  a  medium  white  cloth,  lighter  than 
bleached  domestic  and  heavier  than  plain  white  lawn. 
We  preserved  such  a  baby  frock  as  an  heir-loom  made 
for  Dr.  W.  H.  Felton  in  1823  (who  died  not  long  be- 
fore he  was  eighty-seven).  A  queer  little  frock,  low 
necked  and  with  long  sleeves  and  it  ranked  as  some- 
thing extra  for  quality  when  it  was  completed,  about 
a  half  yard  in  length  with  a  two-inch  ruffle  at  the  bot- 
tom. But  it  differed  greatly  from  the  cloth  made  in 
the  home  looms,  where  the  cotton  seed  were  picked 
out  by  hand  before  the  thread  was  spun  or  woven. 
Everything  a  grown  man  wore  as  before  stated  was 
prepared  at  home  from  the  cotton  in  the  seed  and  the 
wool  on  the  sheep's  back  down  to  the  knitted  suspen- 
ders and  fingerless  mittens. 

Nutmegs  with  other  spices  were  hunted  for  in  Au- 
gusta, brown  sugar  and  black  molasses  were  in  de- 
mand. There  were  small  stores  in  little  towns  and 
some  creditable  country  stores  also.  My  father  had 
a  country  store  where  he  sold  pins  and  needles,  lute 
string  ribbon  and  prunella  shoes  on  one  counter  and 
dealt  out  thick  black  molasses  and  kit  mackerel  within 
ten  feet  of  the  millinery.  Can  I  ever  forget  the  day 
when  my  Uncle  John  who  had  adventured  to  Charles- 
ton to  buy  goods  and  returned  with  a  wax  doll  and 
how  I  could  not  be  parted  from  it  and  how  I  slept  with 

45 


it,  ate  with  it  in  my  arms  and  finally  wrecked  it  by 
going  to  sleep  before  a  great  log  heap  fire  in  the  liv- 
ing room  and  where  the  heat  melted  its  head  and 
spoiled  its  beauty  for  all  time?  Anything  so  rarely 
beautiful  had  never  crossed  my  experience  before.  I 
have  often  wondered  as  to  how  the  nude  red  Indians 
felt  to  see  white  people  in  accustomed  dress  for  the 
first  time.  The  change  from  my  clumsy  rag  dolls  to 
the  Charleston  beauty  with  real  curls  and  blue  eyes 
must  have  produced  somewhat  similar  effects  on  the 
small  Georgia  cracker  who  had  never  seen  a  bought 
doll  before  in  her  four  years  of  mortal  life. 

"We  had  for  small  silver  change  thrips  and  seven 
pences,  value  6  1-4  cents  and  12  1-2.  I  had  a  few  of 
each  that  were  my  very  own  and  I  would  have  given 
all  I  was  worth  for  a  recipe  to  restore  my  doll's  pris- 
tine loveliness. 

In  these  country  stores  there  was  large  traffic  in 
cotton  and  woolen  hand  cards,  and  joy  without  meas- 
ure when  cotton  factories  were  built  in  Georgia  and 
"spun  thread"  could  be  bought  for  the  warp,  because 
homespun  warp  was  not  easy  to  manage  by  inexpert 
weavers.  It  needed  harder  twist  and  stronger 
thread  for  warp  uses,  while  the  filling  could  be  spun 
softer  and  with  less  care.  "We  have  preserved  some  of 
the  store  accounts  of  the  early  period.  Indigo,  mad- 
der, turkey  red  and  copperas  were  staple  goods  for 
dye  purposes  and  the  housewives  of  early  Georgia 
history  went  to  meeting  (church  services)  with  every 
finger  nail  as  blue  as  indigo  mud  would  paint  them. 
It  was  considered  a  badge  of  efficiency,  experience 
and  culture  in  cloth  making.  The  wool  dyes,  made 
women's  hands  almost  black  with  logwood  and  wal- 
nut leaves.  Men's  summer  working  breeches  were 
copperas  dyed  and  those  plain  men-folk  were  as  yel- 
low-legged as  our  choicest  breeds  of  chickens. 

Among  the  Felton  neighbors  a  hundred  years  ago 
was  a  farmer  and  his  industrious  wife  who  spun  and 
wove  all  their  wearing  apparel  and  who  had  manu- 
factured enough  cloth  to  provide  her  husband  with 
two  strong,  good  shirts.  "When  he  returned  at  night 
from  the  hot  corn  and  cotton  plowing  and  his  shirt 

46 


was  wet  with  prespiration  she  had  always  a  clean, 
dry  garment  ready  for  she  did  a  bit  of  laundry  work 
as  regularly  as  she  washed  and  dried  her  breakfast 
dishes  and  this  good  woman's  fame  has  followed  her 
down  as  an  extraordinary  manager  and  capable  mar- 
ried woman.  I  was  impressed  as  to  her  super-excel- 
lence, because  the  family  washing  in  such  plain  homes 
was  done  once  in  seven  days  as  a  rule  and  where 
children  were  numerous  they  might  take  off  their  one 
garment  and  sit  in  their  skin  on  hot  days  until  a  clean 
shirt  or  frock  was  ready  for  use.  In  the  olden  times 
farmer  boys  of  eight,  ten,  even  twelve  years,  were  pro- 
vided with  a  summer  shirt  of  extra  length  (perhaps 
the  pattern  has  been  retained  for  men's  night  shirts) 
and  the  youngsters  had  nothing  to  hinder  their  agility 
in  athletic  sports.  It  would  be  refreshing  to  find 
a  chronicle  of  the  self-made  distinguished  men  of 
early  Georgia  who  were  glad  to  own  and  wear  these 
one-piece,  home-made  suits  when  cloth  was  scarce  and 
hard-work  in  the  field  a  necessity  for  family  subsis- 
tence. 

In  those  early  days  the  children  said  "Dad"  and 
"Mam"  and  as  history  repeats  itself  the  petted  child 
of  1917  is  happy  to  call  his  well-groomed  father  "dad- 
dy." Fifty  years  ago  it  was  a  mark  of  very  common 
raising  to  say  daddy  and  mammy.  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  children  said  "Paw  and  Maw."  The  Huge- 
not  or  French  strains  said  Pere  and  Mere,  while  an- 
other breed  of  folks  in  upper  Georgia  said  "Pap  and 
Mam."  The  most  of  well-raised  folks  said  Par  and 
Mar. 

But  the  folk  raised  in  that  early  period  of  Georgia's 
history  were  brought  up  to  wait  on  their  elders  and 
reverence  for  the  aged  was  the  habit  inculcated  early 
in  their  childhood.  Old  people  then  and  now  were  apt 
to  be  garrulous  and  sometimes  tiresome  with  their  ad- 
vice and  platitudes,  but  the  neglect  of  aged  grand- 
parents, common  in  many  sections  today,  was  of  rare 
occurrence  in  the  homes  of  the  pioneers  of  our  South- 
ern country. 

The  first  wedding  I  ever  attended  was  in  1840.  My 
baby  sister  had  very  lately  arrived,   but  the   good 

47 


neighbors  insisted  that  my  father  and  myself  (barely 
five  years  old)  should  be  there.  Black  Mammy  had 
me  in  charge,  also  the  brass  candlesticks  and  silver 
spoons  that  were  loaned  for  the  big  gathering.  Mam- 
my belonged  to  the  F.  F.  V.  colored,  in  old  Virginia. 
She  always  fixed  her  head  dress  turban  shape  with  a 
big  white  neckerchief  around  her  neck  and  should- 
ers and  a  big  white  apron  about  her  capacious  self. 
Mammy  was  an  expert  on  big  table  arrangements. 
There  was  a  girl  in  the  neighbor's  family  with  whom 
I  had  slight  acquaintance  but  the  wedding  festivities 
accelerated  our  friendship.  I  saw  the  bride  and  groom 
walk  out  to  be  married  and  the  latter  had  been  so  un- 
fortunate as  to  split  his  big  toe  with  an  awkward  axe, 
so  his  unlucky  foot  was  outside  the  upper  part  of  his 
shoe  in  a  white  store  stocking.  The  rest  of  the  time 
I  devoted  to  seeing  the  people  eat,  tablefulls  giving 
way  to  new  comers  as  fast  as  they  could  be  served.  My 
new  girl  friend  agreed  with  me  that  it  was  tedious 
waiting.  Finally  she  made  her  way  between  crowds 
and  found  that  a  quantity  of  plates  had  been  emptied 
into  a  capacious  tin  pan  under  a  side  table.  I  ques- 
tioned the  advisability  of  going  under  that  table  cloth 
and  helping  ourselves  as  one  pig  helps  another.  I  did 
go,  and  I  did  partake,  and  when  I  was  missing  it  was 
black  Mammy  who  discovered  the  lost  child  in  her 
ignoble  plight.  Time  has  never  quite  erased  the  feel- 
ing that  possessed  me  when  my  escapade  was  nar- 
rated at  my  mother's  bedside  on  our  return.  To 
start  out  as  I  had  done  with  my  best  bib  and  tucker, 
traveling  in  fine  style  with  a  pair  of  matched  horses 
and  a  driver,  with  the  comfortable  feeling  that  I  was 
going  to  a  big  wedding,  and  then  to  be  brought  home 
in  some  sort  of  disgrace,  because  I  ate  under  a  table, 
out  of  a  scrap  bucket,  with  all  the  indignation  that 
Mammy  was  capable  of  expressing  by  words  and 
looks  and  gestures,  I  was  given  a  lesson  as  to  table 
manners  and  wedding  feasts  that  always  remained 
with  me.  So  far  as  I  know  nobody  but  Mammy  ever 
suffered  stifling  mortification  about  it,  nevertheless 
the  memory  of  it  has  lasted  nearly  fourscore  years 
with  the  delinquent. 

48 


The  first  funeral  I  ever  attended  still  haunts  my 
memory.  The  dead  wife  and  mother  left  a  family  of 
small  children,  two  of  them  my  school  mates.  There 
was  a  poor  little  baby,  two  months  old,  and  the  chil- 
dren were  left  in  deep  sorrow  and  gloom. 

The  dead  woman  and  my  mother  had  been  girlhood 
friends.  I  loved  her  like  I  loved  my  kin,  and  T  almost 
cried  myself  sick  with  those  lonely  children  who  came 
to  us  to  get  relief  from  the  sad  home.  There  were  no 
hearses  in  those  days.  Neighbors  took  hold  of  cof- 
fin handles  and  carried  the  coffin  to  the  grave  yard. 
The  preacher  took  the  hand  of  one  of  my  sobbing 
school  mates  and  walked  behind  the  coffin.  The  .snow 
was  falling  and  the  gloom  of  the  whole  business  was 
almost  too  much  for  us  all. 

The  coffin  was  made  in  the  town.  I  saw  the  peo- 
ple tack  on  the  outside  black  cloth  and  the  inside 
white  linings.  It  filled  me  with  an  awful  dread  that 
my  mother  might  die,  too.  I  was  worked  up  into  a 
sort  of  hysteria.  When  the  clods  fell  on  the  coffin  I 
could  scarcely  repress  a  shriek.  Little  children  can 
suffer  intense  agony  under  similar  conditions. 

I  do  not  recall  any  particular  mourning  garments. 
In  rural  districts  death  always  caught  the  people  at 
a  disadvantage.  Home-made  coffins  were  clumsy. 
Shrouds  were  made  around  the  dead  body.  Neighbors 
had  to  dig  the  graves  and  do  all  things  else,  as  there 
were  no  bought  things  to  help  along.  Crowds  could 
be  had  to  sit  up  with  the  dead.  Silver  coins  were  laid 
on  eyelids  to  hold  them  down.  When  a  person  got  so 
low  down  in  reputation  that  he  deserved  the  mean- 
est that  could  be  said,  you  would  hear  "He  is  mean 
enough  to  steal  the  silver  on  a  dead  man's  eyes." 
Graves  had  to  be  made  nearby  unless  there  was  a 
meeting  house  within  convenient  distance.  People 
were  generally  buried  on  their  own  land  and  enclosed 
like  a  tiny  garden,  with  wooden  palings. 

I  recall  an  incident  that  stays  with  me.  Occasion- 
ally my  mother  helped  in  the  store,  in  push  times.  I 
was  in  evidence  too.  One  day  a  lady  with  several  chil- 
dren came  and  bought  big  bundles.  When  she  left  I 
found  my  mother  crying  and  to  pacify  me  she  told  the 

49 


reason.  The  customer  had  a  dreadful  cancer  and  felt 
she  was  going  to  die.  She  desired  to  prepare  a  good 
supply  of  children's  clothing  (there  were  no  such 
things  to  be  bought)  before  the  crisis  came.  Just  be- 
fore she  started  home,  in  her  carryall  a  sort  of  con- 
veyance in  general  use,  she  went  with  my  mother  into 
the  back  room  of  the  store  and  showed  her  bosom  with 
the  cruel  ravages  made  in  her  breast.  And  those 
children  were  so  happy  and  knew  so  little  about  the 
heroism  of  their  mother  who  faced  death  like  a  mar- 
tyr. 

The  first  railroad  in  Georgia  coming  from  Augusta 
and  toward  us  in  northwestern  sections  created  much 
excitement.  This  excitement  became  intense  when  the 
legislature  passed  a  bill  to  construct  another  railroad 
starting  from  our  section  going  to  the  Tennessee  line, 
with  State's  money,  and  to  connect  with  the  other 
road  known  as  the  Georgia  railroad,  at  Marthasville. 

The  civil  engineer  of  the  Georgia  road  made  his 
headquarters  at  our  home  off  and  on  for  perhaps 
eighteen  months.  The  progress  of  both  undertakings 
was  a  topic  of  daily  conversation  where  I  could  won- 
der and  also  listen.  When  the  state  railroad  was  able 
to  lay  down  rails  from  Atlanta,  then  known  as  Mar- 
thasville, to  Marietta,  twenty  miles,  the  engine,  freight 
car  and  passenger  coach  were  hauled  from  near  Au- 
gusta by  mules,  over  the  stage  line,  and  the  Avonderful 
new  cars  were  halted  in  the  big  road  in  front  of  my 
home.  They  had  already  come  over  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  when  I  saw  the  three  before  named. 

It  was  decided  to  celebrate  the  opening  of  the  state 
road  by  an  excursion  to  Marietta  from  Marthasville 
with  a  big  ball  at  the  latter  place  and  considerable 
speech-making  from  the  politicians.  It  was  the  first 
adventure  of  that  sort  in  the  Southern  States  and 
broke  the  ice  for  internal  public  improvements.  My 
parents  were  invited  by  the  beloved  civil  engineers.  I 
was  included,  a  tot  of  seven  years,  and  I  could  now 
paint  scenes,  if  I  was  an  artist,  with  distinct  remem- 
brance of  what  I  saw  on  that  great  trip. 

The  future  Capitol  of  Georgia  then  had  one  build- 
ing, the  rough  plank  depot,  with  a  shed  room  equipped 

50 


with  a  fireplace  where  all  sorts  of  good  liquor  could  be 
bought,  etc. 

It  was  a  cold  day  in  the  late  fall  and  my  father  and 
mother,  with  my  small  self,  reachtd  Thompson's  Hotel 
in  Decatur,  where  the  excursionists  assembled  and 
where  a  fine  dinner  was  provided.  It  was  a  six-mile 
drive  to  Marthasville  and  conveyances  were  in  de- 
mand. We  were  delighted  when  Maria  Gertrude  Kyle 
took  a  seat  in  our  barouche  on  my  mother 's  invitation, 
and  she  was  well  known  as  authoress  and  poetess,  in 
our  few  Georgia  papers.  She  had  lately  married  and 
her  new  clothes  interested  me,  and  I  was  even  more  in- 
terested to  see  her  dance  that  night  in  some  of  the  new 
sort  of  dances,  different  from  the  Virginia  Reel  and 
cotillions  that  I  had  been  accustomed  to,  in  our  own 
home,  by  tourists  who  traveled  from  Savannah  and 
Augusta  to  Nashville,  Tenn.,  and  regions  beyond, 
either  in  a  stage  coach  or  private  carriages.  The  sup- 
per was  handed  to  us  as  the  people  sat  on  benches 
around  the  Marietta  ball  room.  Some  people  had 
syllabub  strong  with  Maderia  wine,  but  I  had  a  wine 
glass  of  jelly  and  a  spoon  with  which  to  dip  it  out. 

I  soon  had  enough  of  the  frolic  and  was  put  to  sleep 
in  a  bed,  already  a  foot  deep  with  shawls,  capes  and 
bonnets.  The  joyful  folks  danced  all  night.  There 
were  relays  of  fiddlers  to  keep  the  tunes  going.  I  re- 
member I  thought  I  had  been  awake  all  the  time  be- 
cause the  music  and  the  calling  of  dance  figures  and 
the  dancers'  feet  seemed  to  be  going  on  until  daylight 
in  the  morning. 

The  trip  homeward  was  as  dull  as  the  going  had 
been  hilarious,  but  I  have  always  taken  satisfaction  in 
the  thought  that  I  was  a  trip  passenger  on  the  very 
first  passenger  train  that  ever  left  the  Union  Depot  in 
the  present  city  of  Atlanta.  Judge  Warner,  the  grand- 
father of  Judge  Warner  Hill,  of  Supreme  Court,  was 
on  board  with  his  little  daughter,  now  Mrs.  Hill.  So 
far  as  we  know  she  and  I  are  the  only  two  known  to 
be  living,  and  fellow  travelers  on  that  momentous  oc- 
casion when  a  railroad  was  adventuring  into  Cherokee 
Georgia  where  the  Cherokee  Indians  had  been  living 
only  ten  years  before.    A  Mr.  William  Longstreet  had 

51 


invented  a  steamboat  before  that  time  and  should 
share  honors  with  the  so-called  inventor  who  got  the 
credit.  My  father  used  to  sing  for  me  the  following 
ditty  based  on  Mr.  Billy  Longstreet'  s  new  fad. 

Billy  boy,  Billy  boy,  can  you  steer  the  ship  to  land? 
Billy  boy,  Billy  boy,  can  you  steer  the  ship  to  land? 
Yes,  I  can  steer  the  ship  to  land 
"Without  a  rudder  in  my  hand. 

Billy  boy,  Billy  boy,  can  you  row  that  boat  ashore? 
Billy  boy,  Billy  boy,  can  you  row  that  boat  ashore? 
Yes,  I  can  row  that  boat  ashore 
Without  a  paddle  or  an  oar. 

I  remember  also  a  Maryland  corn-shucking  song 
that  my  father  would  sing  to  me  in  my  baby  days.  He 
came  from  his  native  state  when  a  small  boy,  but  he 
brought  to  Georgia  many  songs  that  delighted  me. 
One  of  the  many  still  remains.  Among  the  Maryland 
chronicles  of  wills  and  deeds,  mention  is  seen  of  the 
Notleys.    The  song  runs  thus: 

"Mighty  wedding  over  the  River  (Potomac) 

Hoosen  Johnny — Hoosay ! 
Notley  Dutton  courts  the  widoAV. 

Hoosen  Johnny — Hoosay. ' ' 

These  Marylanders  and  Virginians  had  corn-shuck- 
ings.  They  were  almost  universal  in  Georgia  in  my 
childhood.  The  ripened  corn  was  hauled  to  the  barn 
lot  and  heaped  on  the  ground  outside  the  crib.  Word 
was  sent  around  that  so  and  so  would  have  a  corn- 
shucking  on  a  certain  night.  White  farmers  came 
with  their  colored  men.  A  great  supper  was  prepared 
for  all  who  came — substantials — plenty  of  it.  In  the 
big  house  there  was  a  bountiful  table,  in  the  kitchen 
another  table  just  as  plentiful  for  the  blacks.  It  was 
a  big  time  for  everybody.  Before  the  daylight  came 
the  shucked  corn  was  safely  housed.  Everybody  had 
a  good  time  and  "all  went  home  in  the  morning." 

Those  corn-shucking  melodies  are  yet  twittering  in 
my  recollection,  and  when  my  own  babies  came  along 

52 


in  the  early  days,  for  my  first  born  arrived  when  I  was 
only  nineteen,  I  found  myself  singing  "Papa's  Corn 
Songs"  that  he  brought  along  from  his  old  Potomac 
home. 

And  I  must  not  forget  the  "quiltings."  Fashion- 
ables would  call  them  "quilting  bees,"  but  they  were 
popular  gatherings.  The  women  of  the  neighborhood 
were  delighted  to  entertain.  Each  guest  brought 
along  her  own  thimble,  maybe  a  needle  or  so ;  as  nee- 
dles were  scarce  and  high.  Along  about  midday  the 
husbands  began  to  come,  some  afoot,  others  on  horse- 
back. And  the  dinner,  was  a  spread  that  tested  the 
skill  and  industry  of  the  hostess  to  be  sure.  The  "ta- 
bles groaned"  with  everything  that  the  mistress  and 
her  colored  women  could  prepare.  After  dinner  was 
over  the  farmers  returned  to  their  work  and  the  wo- 
men finished  the  quilt,  even  to  binding  the  edges  in 
first  class  style.  And  there  were  famous  quilters 
abroad  in  the  land  in  those  industrious  days. 

I  had  almost  forgotten  to  say  that  when  a  farmer 
was  very  sick  and  unable  to  work  and  watch  his  crop 
his  neighbors  would  go  over  on  a  day  agreed  upon, 
with  all  their  forces,  plow  hands,  horses  and  plows 
and  before  dark  came  the  crop  was  in  good  order. 

A  couple  of  fine  Georgia  gentlemen  whose  grand- 
parents were  my  father's  early  neighbors,  told  me  the 
following  story  about  two  years  ago.  The  grand- 
father became  ill  and  died — left  a  widow  and  a  house 
full  of  children.  There  were  slaves  but  nobody  to  di- 
rect but  the  anxious  woman  who  had  this  large  family, 
black  and  white,  to  provide  for.  Everybody  had  to 
fence  the  cultivated  land.  Old-fashioned  worm  fences 
were  all  they  had.  The  widow  could  not  get  the 
"worm  of  the  fence"  laid  straight.  My  father  heard 
about  it  and  early  one  morning  he  went  over  (about  a 
mile)  and  carried  every  field  hand  he  had,  and  he 
made  a  straight  fence  out  of  a  crooked  one  before 
nightfall.  When  she  sold  her  crop  he  kept  the  matter 
straight  for  her,  whenever  she  needed  advice  she  knew 
where  to  go  to  find  a  willing  helper. 

After  eighty  years  or  more  had  passed  the  grand- 
children of  the  widow  told  me  of  the  esteem  and  affec- 

53 


tion  that  lasted  with  their  family  when  all  the  actors 
were  dead  and  largely  forgotten.  All  along  down  the 
line  they  said  they  were  told  of  the  "best  neighbor 
Grandmother  ever  had."  These  fine,  elegant  Geor- 
gians requested  the  privilege  of  carrying  my  sister 
and  myself  on  a  visit  to  our  birth  place  in  an  auto- 
mobile. Also  to  the  girlhood  home  where  both  of  us 
had  been  married,  neither  of  which  I  had  seen  since 
the  Civil  War  was  over.  It  was  a  day  of  days  for  us. 
What  they  knew  and  could  tell  was  largely  tradition 
and  hearsay,  but  what  we  knew  and  felt,  words  cannot 
fitly  express.  The  river  plantation  passed  away  from 
us  in  my  father's  lifetime.  We  had,  therefore,  no 
financial  interest  in  it.  It  had  changed  hands  several 
times  within  the  half  century.  It  had  gone  down  in 
decay  but  it  was  a  thrilling  place  for  two  aged  women 
who  had  been  happy,  active  girls  when  we  called  it 
"home." 

Somebody  sent  me  the  following  circular  before  it 
passed  into  the  present  owner's  hands.  As  it  gives  me 
kind  mention,  I  wish  my  descendants  to  know  of  the 
occurrence.  In  our  day  we  had  crowds  of  company, 
music,  good  living,  all  the  things  that  belonged  to  a 
comfortable  country  home  in  upper  Georgia. 


"BIG  AUCTION  SALE 

of  Farming  Lands,  at  Court  House  in  Decatur,  on  Wednesday, 
September  15,  at  noon. 

"Panola  Plantation  to  be  Subdivided  and  Sold. 

' '  One  of  the  finest  plantations  in  DeKalb  County,  the  famous 
Panola  Plantation,  will  be  divided  into  eleven  farms  by  the  en- 
terprising Eeal  Estate  firm  of  H.  F.  Sanders  and  Shelby  Smith, 
of  Atlanta,  and  sold  at  public  outcry  to  the  highest  bidder  at 
the  Court  House  in  Decatur,  on  Wednesday,  September  15,  at 
twelve  o  'clock,  noon.  The  plantation  contains  725  acres.  It 
lies  on  South  Eiver,  fifteen  miles  east  from  Atlanta,  ten  miles 
from  Decatur,  five  miles  from  Lithonia,  and  seven  miles  from 
Ellenwood. 

' '  Panola  Plantation,  from  our  best  information,  was  the 
childhood  home  of  Mrs.  W.  H.  Felton,  whom  all  Georgians  love 
and  honor.  Maj.  Latimer,  the  father  of  Mrs.  Felton,  built  the 
fine  colonial  home  on  this  place.  The  body  of  the  house  is  in 
a  fine  state  of  preservation. 

"Mr.  E.  M.  Clark  was  the  next  owner  of  this  place.  He 
supervised  the  Oglethorpe  Manufacturing  Company,  which  built 

54 


a  cotton  mill  there.  This  plant  was  burned  several  years  ago. 
In  connection  with  his  milling  interests,  Mr.  Clark  maintained 
on  this  plantation  a  very  fine  stock  farm,  raising  in  great 
abundance,  all  kinds  of  provender,  such  as  wheat,  corn,  oats, 
hay,  etc.  In  addition  to  the  cultivated  lands,  he  had  very  fine 
pastures. 

"There  are  several  public  roads  that  converge  at  this  place, 
making  it  a  good  point  for  a  public  store.  There  was  at  one 
time  a  store  and  post  office  there. 

"This  plantation  was  later  bought  by  Col.  Milton  Candler, 
and  afterwards  sold  to  the  present  owners. 

"It  will  be  seen  from  the  above,  that  this  plantation  is  his- 
torical. 

' '  These  eleven  tracts  as  subdivided,  for  quality  of  land,  value 
of  timber,  convenience  of  location,  and  many  other  points,  have 
never  been  equalled  at  any  auction  sale  in  DeKalb  county." 

Among  the  notable  family  occasions  that  I  recall 
was  the  wedding  of  our  miller,  colored,  and  the  house- 
maid, that  would  doubtless  interest  the  northern  peo- 
ple as  a  feature  in  Southern  country  life  before  the 
war.  Ben  was  quite  a  catch  in  his  early  manhood,  and 
Minerva  was  one  of  the  three  colored  girls  given  my 
mother  by  her  father.  She  generally  journeyed  with 
the  family  to  Grandmother's  home  when  we  children 
were  small,  as  my  sister's  nurse.  She  was  not  a  field 
hand  but  remained  in  the  big  house  as  house  maid. 
The  match  was  of  prominence  therefore. 

They  were  to  be  given  a  house  of  their  own,  a  plain 
cabin,  but  close  and  comfortable.  Ben  had  a  new 
suit  of  clothes  for  a  bridal  present.  The  bride  got  her 
outfit  from  we  girls.  There  was  a  preacher  to  marry 
them  and  a  good  supper  for  the  occasion.  There  were 
a  happy  couple,  had  a  family  of  sprightly  children 
and  were  a  part  of  my  sister's  allotment  after  she 
married  and  had  her  own  home.  The  surrender  turn- 
ed everything  upside  down  and  Ben  went  back  to  the 
old  Panola  home  and  secured  a  position  as  miller.  As 
the  years  rolled  on  Ben  lost  his  wife  and  his  boys  mar- 
ried and  he  was  lonely  in  his  old  age.  He  came  back 
to  his  "Mis'  Mary"  and  she  gave  him  a  house  to  live 
in,  coal  to  burn,  clothes  to  wear,  was  fed  from  her  ta- 
ble at  every  meal  and  he  swept  the  sidewalks  and  did 
errands  for  my  sister  as  well  as  he  could.  After  he 
had  passed  eighty  years  he  was  often  infirm,  sick  at 

55 


times.  One  of  his  sons  was  comfortably  fixed  and 
sister  advised  the  old  negro  to  go  there  to  be  properly 
waited  on.  She  gave  him  the  money  to  get  there.  In- 
side of  two  days  Ben  turned  up  again  with  nothing  to 
say  beyond  "Mis'  Mary  I've  come  back."  When  he 
died  "Miss  Mary"  furnished  the  coffin  and  burial 
clothes  and  had  been  his  best  friend  in  his  extreme 
poverty  and  weight  of  years,  when  he  was  too  infirm 
to  help  himself.    He  died  two  years  ago. 

Once  I  was  "candle-holder"  at  a  big  negro  wedding 
at  Grandmother's  home.  The  girl  was  a  housemaid 
but  the  groom  lived  several  miles  away  and  came  to 
his  wife's  home  every  Saturday  night  to  stay  until 
Monday  morning  daylight.  The  patrol  system  was  in 
force  throughout  the  South.  Colored  men  going  to 
the  wife's  house  were  given  a  "pass"  and  it  was  a  wise 
precaution.  Slaves  were  too  valuable  to  allow  one  of 
them  to  be  beaten  because  he  did  not  have  a  "pass." 
The  colored  boy  came  one  night  after  supper  to  "ask 
for  the  girl,"  and  I  was  present  at  the  asking.  I  was 
very  fond  of  the  bride-to-be,  and  I  became  a  close 
listener.  There  seemed  to  be  a  sort  of  matrimonial 
catechism  for  such  occasions.  "Will  you  treat  your 
wife  decent,  if  I  allow  you  to  marry  her  ? "  "  Will  you 
act  the  dog  and  beat  my  good  darky  when  you  get  mad 
with  her?"  He  gladly  answered  "no."  "Now  I  ex- 
pect you  to  behave  yourself  if  you  come  here  to  live. 
It's  my  house  you  will  live  in  with  your  wife  but  you 
are  welcome  if  you  behave  yourself. ' ' 

As  a  wind-up  Grandfather  said  "Now,  Jim,  my  own 
colored  men  that  go  to  the  wife's  house,  always  cut  up 
plenty  of  firewood  for  house  and  kitchen  before  they 
start  on  Saturday  afternoons.  Mind  you,  now,  if  you 
take  any  of  their  wood  and  are  too  lazy  to  go  to  the 
woodpile  to  make  your  wife  a  good  fire  by  your  own 
labor,  I'm  as  certain  to  thrash  you  as  I  find  it  out, 
and  they  will  be  sure  to  tell  me. ' '  The  crowd  that  at- 
tended the  wedding  had  to  be  entertained  out  of  doors 
for  the  ceremony.  No  cabin  could  give  them  standing 
room.  As  "chief  cook  and  bottle  washer,"  or  rather 
director  of  arrangements,  I  held  the  candle  for  the 
colored  preacher  to  read  the  marriage  pledges.     He 

56 


had  a  newspaper  clipping  in  his  hand  and  I  saw  it  was 
upside  down,  but  it  served  to  raise  a  laugh  when  my 
part  of  the  performance  was  over,  and  I  repeated  to 
Grandfather  what  I  saw  and  heard  as  an  official  at  the 
marriage.  And  I  was  so  welcome  for  I  was  Miss 
Ann's  oldest  little  gal,  and  I  was  to  tell  about  it  when 
I  reached  my  own  home,  and  you  may  be  sure  I  was 
a  faithful  narrator  to  a  very  eager  set  of  people  while 
I  was  doing  it. 


RAILROADS,   SCHOOLS,   SCHOOL   TEACHERS, 
AND  REVIVALS. 


My  father's  early  plantation  was  twenty  miles  from 
Covington,  Newton  County,  Ga.,  and  ten  miles  from 
Decatur,  and  situated  on  the  main  highway  coming 
down  from  Nashville,  Tenn.,  to  Augusta.  As  far  back 
as  I  can  recollect  stage  coaches  were  actively  used  on 
this  line.  These  coaches  were  ponderous  affairs  with 
a  big  leather  boot  on  behind  and  a  little  bannister 
around  the  top  to  hold  baggage.  There  were  regular 
stage  stands  ten  miles  apart,  where  a  relay  of  four 
horses  were  constantly  stabled.  About  a  mile  away 
the  stage  driver's  horn  would  be  sounded  so  that  the 
hostler  would  be  ready  with  fresh  horses  on  his  arrival. 
They  were  also  mail  carriers.  It  cost  ten  cents  a  mile 
to  travel  on  the  stage  coach  and  it  required  ten  cents 
to  send  a  letter.  I  have  an  old  letter  written  by  my 
father  to  my  mother,  before  I  was  born,  and  it  is 
marked  for  twelve  and  a  half  cents  for  postage  from 
Charleston,  S.  C.  It  was  also  a  newsy  letter,  for  those 
days.  It  was  his  first  ride  on  a  railroad  from  Augusta 
to  Charleston.  The  railroad  was  built  on  trestles,  and 
my  mother  suffered  painful  anxiety  as  to  whether  her 
husband  would  survive  the  dangers  of  that  rapid 
journey.  At  Aiken,  S.  C,  there  was  an  inclined  plane. 
An  extra  engine  would  be  hitched  on  to  one  end  of  a 
chain  or  cable  and  the  train  would  be  pulled  up  and 
down  on  this  inclined  plane.  I  rode  over  the  Aiken 
plane,    when  I  neared    my    twelfth    birthday,    and 

67 


experienced  the  hoisting  (or  lowering)  process  with 
extra  engine.  It  seems  to  have  escaped  the  minds  of 
the  railroad  contractors  that  a  road  could  be  built  on 
the  ground,  or  that  a  hill  could  be  graded  or  dug 
around  or  tunneled.  Not  long  before  the  Georgia 
R.  R.,  from  Augusta  to  the  town  of  Marthasville,  was 
started  and  the  state  of  Georgia  decided  to  build  an- 
other road  from  Marthasville  to  the  hamlet  of  Chatta- 
nooga, Tenn.,  known  then  as  Ross'  Landing,  of  which 
I  have  made  mention.  I  seemed  to  have  come  along 
about  the  time  that  railroads  and  good  school  houses 
were  agitated  in  my  part  of  the  country.  And  there 
were  progressive  people  around  us  for  it  was  decided 
to  build  an  extra  good  school  house  close  by  and  en- 
gage a  teacher  that  was  somebody,  in  our  immediate 
neighborhood.  My  father  gave  the  site  and  the  com- 
munity erected  the  building.  It  was  a  long  framed 
house  with  a  chimney  at  each  end,  doors  in  the  middle, 
front  and  rear.  My  first  teacher  was  Rev.  F.  M.  Hay- 
good,  uncle  of  Bishop  A.  G.  Haygood.  The  teacher 
was  of  Baptist  faith  while  the  Bishop's  father  was  a 
strong  Methodist.  The  school  house  cost  so  much 
money  to  build  that  the  patrons  "signed"  for  the 
pupils,  which  meant  a  pledge  to  pay  the  teacher  an 
allotted  sum  at  an  allotted  time.  My  father  "signed" 
for  his  little  girl,  not  yet  five  years  old,  so  I  had  an 
early  start  in  primitive  schooling.  There  is  a  halo 
about  the  memories  of  that  first  school  business  which 
do  not  pertain  to  my  later  schools.  As  I  remember  the 
time,  I  was  as  happy  as  the  day  was  long,  and  I  was 
devoted  to  Webster's  blue  back  spelling  book.  It  was 
"readin,  writin,  and  cipheren"  from  eight  in  the 
morning  to  five  or  six  in  the  afternoon  and  the  big 
boys  took  their  slates  and  worked  sums  out  of  doors 
and  the  girls  had  reading  lessons  in  the  school  house 
part  of  the  day  and  the  teacher  taught  the  small  ones 
every  word  of  the  lesson  in  the  spelling  book  at  his 
knee.  All  pupils  when  advanced  to  writing  lessons 
took  a  spell  at  the  high  writing  bench.  All  brought 
goose  quills  from  home  to  fashion  into  pens,  and  the 
teacher  occupied  a  good  part  of  his  teaching  time  cut- 
ting the  goose  quills  into  pen  shape.     There  might 

58 


have  been  some  pencils  in  use,  but  I  cannot  recall  any 
such  things.  Writing  ink  was  scarce  and  high  but 
the  oak  balls  that  fell  from  the  oak  tree  limbs  were 
plentiful.  So  the  thrifty  ones  manufactured  red  ink 
in  that  way  and  the  copy  books  were  parti-colored  on 
every  page  and  almost  every  line.  Slates  and  slate 
pencils  were  sold  at  my  father's  store,  and  I  had  a 
small  slate  on  which  I  drew  pictures  of  cows,  cats  and 
dogs  and  the  large  girls  and  boys  made  pictures  of  the 
teacher  on  the  sly.  The  spelling  lesson  of  the  day  was 
the  closing  exercise.  The  teacher  had  a  queer  con- 
trivance nailed  to  a  post  set  up  in  the  middle  of  the 
room.  It  was  known  as  a  "spelling  board."  When 
he  pulled  the  string  to  which  the  board  was  fastened 
the  school  gave  attention.  If  he  let  the  board  half  way 
down  the  scholars  could  spell  out  words  in  moderate 
tone  in  preparing  that  evening  spelling  bee.  If  he 
proceeded  to  pull  the  board  up  tight  everybody 
"spelled  to  themselves."  When  he  had  drilled  them 
considerably  on  the  ' '  shut-mouth ' '  plan,  he  would  ad- 
vance towards  the  spelling  board,  give  the  cord  a  pull 
until  down  dropped  the  plank  and  then  the  hubbub, 
began.    Everything  went  with  a  roar. 

Just  as  loud  as  you  pleased.  You  might  spell  ba- 
ker or  circumlocution  or  anything  else  and  the  people 
going  along  the  road  were  happy  to  know  that  the 
children  were  getting  their  lessons,  and  that  the 
teacher  was  earning  his  pay. 

When  the  spelling  class  was  called  those  that  missed 
went  down  to  foot  of  the  class,  and  those  that  spelled 
well  went  up  head.  There  was  some  luck  in  the  mat- 
ter ;  nevertheless,  I  fairly  danced  on  my  way  home, 
when  I  went  up  head  the  first  time.  When  my  first 
school  term  closed  (aged  five  years)  the  entire  neigh- 
borhood gathered  to  hear  the  boys  speak,  and  listen  to 
the  girls  as  they  read  a  page  in  the  reading  book.  I 
recall  one  other  time  when  the  school  exercises  were 
closed  after  a  big  audience  had  been  there  all  day  by 
a  marriage  ceremony  between  Mr.  Haygood,  the  teach- 
er, and  his  handsomest  grown-up  girl  pupil.  It  took 
us  all  by  surprise,  nevertheless  it  was  considered  a  de- 
lightful wind  up.    We  had  ups  and  downs  in  the  next 

59 


three  years.  Changed  teachers,  the  fine  school  house 
was  burned  at  night,  and  my  parents  decided  to  send 
me  to  school  in  Oxford,  Ga.,  where  I  was  boarded  at 
Rev.  Mr.  Simmons'  and  attended  Miss  Hayes'  school 
and  took  music  lessons  from  Mr.  Guttenberger,  a  blind 
man  and  a  pioneer  in  music  teaching  in  upper  Geor- 
gia. The  stage  driver  became  a  great  friend  to  the  lit- 
tle girl  and  I  expect  I  enjoyed  my  stage  trips  of  twen- 
ty miles  much  more  than  a  late  one  to  New  York  city 
within  the  last  month.  At  Miss  Hayes'  school  I  won  a 
pound  of  candy  by  repeating  the  multiplication  table 
back  and  forth  without  missing  a  figure,  and  I  played 
the  "Blue  Bells  of  Scotland"  for  my  blind  teacher  at 
his  concert  at  the  school's  close,  which  was  considered 
pretty  fair  going  for  an  eight-year-old  girl  in  the  early 
40  's  in  piano  playing. 

In  the  rural  schools  of  my  earliest  days  nearly  all 
of  us  wore  a  cord  about  our  necks  with  a  little  wal- 
let of  brimstone  or  assafoetida  tied  on  as  an  itch  pre- 
ventive. And  the  warts.  My !  My ! !  How  to  get  rid 
of  the  itch  and  the  warts  on  their  hands  occupied 
much  of  general  conversation  at  recess  time  and  the 
surprising  part  of  the  whole  thing  was  the  apparent 
indifference  to  both  itch  and  warts  in  the  rude  homes 
where  the  majority  of  the  pupils  were  domiciled.  Af- 
ter these  girl  pupils  were  able  to  read  fairly  well  and 
to  write  a  little  they  vacated  the  school  benches  and 
went  back  home  for  the  domestic  duties  that  were  im- 
perative. When  I  think  of  the  helps  afforded  to  pupils 
nowadays  and  their  attendance  at  fine  schools  from  six 
to  sixteen  and  later,  my  appreciation  of  the  early  ones 
increases  in  immense  ratio.  They  got  so  little  eighty 
years  ago  and  yet  made  so  great  progress  in  business, 
at  home  and  outside.  Some  of  the  finest  business  men 
of  that  early  era  had  something  less  than  three  months 
schooling,  yet  they  were  capable,  wrote  legibly  and 
made  headway  in  fortune-making  and  good  living. 

My  next  adventure  with  schools  took  place  in  De- 
catur where  Dr.  John  S.  "Wilson  established  an  acade- 
my of  high  grade.  My  parents  moved  to  the  town, 
and  made  various  business  sacrifices  because  of  this, 
educational  opportunity.    Dr.  Wilson  was  also  pastor 

60 


of  the  Presbyterian  church  and  founded  the  first  of 
the  same  kind  of  churches  in  Atlanta.  He  was  a 
famous  teacher  because  of  his  thoroughness.  The  five 
years  of  my  school  life  that  I  spent  under  his  super- 
vision were  the  very  best  of  all  I  received  and  I  have 
reason  to  thank  him,  because  he  kept  me  at  spelling 
lessons  year  after  year,  and  his  grammar  instruction 
was  well  nigh  perfect  in  its  exactness  and  constant 
application.  That  still  embraces  the  secret  of  a  good 
education.  His  good  influence  on  that  community  has 
been  felt  for  more  than  half  a  century  as  an  educator. 
Decatur,  in  his  time,  was  one  of  the  finest  towns  in 
upper  Georgia,  with  its  high  grade  of  citizenship  and 
distinguished  for  the  fine  women  that  were  reared  and 
educated  there  when  educational  opportunities  were 
limited  and  no  advantages  from  travel  abroad  were 
obtainable.    Allow  me  to  tell  a  story. 

Dr.  Wilson  was  unutterably  opposed  to  dancing. 
His  opposition  became  a  serious  matter  when  he  for- 
bade his  scholars  to  attend  dancing  parties.  For 
a  while  the  controversy  ran  high.  It  put  me  in  a 
panic  because  I  loved  to  dance  like  I  loved  candy.  My 
father  liked  to  have  me  dance,  he  said  it  gave  girls  a 
graceful  walk.  My  mother  was  not  so  much  in  favor 
of  it.  I  was  now  very  uneasy.  There  was  always  a 
big  ball  in  Decatur  at  the  principal  hotel  on  Friday 
night  of  Superior  Court  week.  Our  judge  was  Hon. 
Edward  Young  Hill,  one  of  the  handsomest  men  I 
still  think  I  ever  saw  in  my  life.  I  looked  forward  to 
that  big  ball  with  delight.  I  was  just  entering  my 
teens  and  several  times  the  judge  would  ask  me  to 
dance  with  him  and  he  was  a  splendid  dancer. 

I  was  quite  sure  at  that  time,  that  I  was  something 
extra  on  the  "light  fantastic  toe,"  but  I  am  now  sat- 
isfied there  were  so  many  handsome  belles  fond  of 
dancing  that  the  judge  evaded  a  choice  by  selecting 
an  active  little  girl  who  cared  only  for  the  sport,  just 
as  he  did.  He  and  my  father  were  great  friends,  both 
"Whigs  as  I  recollect,  and  it  was  the  easiest  way  out  to 
get  a  very  harmless  little  dancing  mate.  Up  and  down 
inside  the  rows  of  partners  or  outside  (as  it  hap- 
pened) in  the  Virginia  Keel,  we  kept  up  our  part  of 

61 


the  business  with  joyful  alacrity.  But  the  opposition 
of  Dr.  Wilson  grew  apace.  He  became  more  aggres- 
sive and  the  school  patrons  were  divided  in  their  opin- 
ions. While  some  agreed  others  said  it  was  none  of  his 
business.  The  crisis  came.  The  time  of  the  big  ball 
was  only  a  few  days  off.  One  morning  after  school 
opened,  the  stern  old  dominie  shot  his  bolt.  The 
fiat  read  this  way:  "Any  girl  that  goes  to  a  dancing 
party  while  in  school  attendance  will  be  dismissed  next 
day. ' '  When  he  said  a  thing  he  said  it  with  emphasis. 
We  were  up  against  it  hard  and  fast. 

I  told  the  story  at  home  and  my  mother  said  ' '  We  Tl 
wait  until  your  father  hears  about  it."  My  heart  was 
almost  in  my  mouth  when  the  case  was  laid  before 
him.  He  was  my  dependence.  I  hoped  he  would  as- 
sert his  rights  to  govern  his  own  household.  But  the 
case  was  decided  against  me.  He  finally  said:  "We 
keep  up  two  establishments,  one  in  town  the  other  on 
river  plantation,  where  I  must  stay  from  Monday  un- 
til Saturday  night,  to  give  you  school  privileges.  This 
is  why  I  bought  this  home  in  town.  Otherwise  we 
would  not  be  here. ' '  He  disliked  to  give  me  pain  and 
he  knew  I  loved  to  dance.  Finally  he  jokingly  said 
"Little  girl.  Dr.  Wilson  is  trying  to  educate  your 
mind  and  I  must  help  him.  After  awhile  there  will  be 
time  a  plenty  to  educate  your  heels." 

When  the  big  ball  came  on  we  could  sit  on  our  front 
porch  and  see  the  dancers  in  the  hotel,  because  the  big 
dining  room  was  always  emptied  of  its  tables  for  the 
ball.  The  music  had  never  been  more  enticing.  I  could 
hear  the  dancing  orders  spoken.  I  don't  think  I  had 
ever  wanted  to  go  anywhere  so  badly  in  all  my  life 
before.  But  I  gave  it  up  with  a  fairly  good  grace. 
When  the  school  term  closed  my  parents  gave  me  a 
dancing  party  to  show  their  sympathy  with  the  girl 
that  tried  to  be  brave. 

It  was  a  new  era  in  Georgia  history  when  Northern 
women  came  down  South  as  teachers  or  governesses. 
No  Southern  woman  of  means  ever  proposed  to  work 
at  anything  outside  of  home.  When  she  left  school 
she  began  quilt-making,  etc.,  looking  towards  matri- 
mony and  it  was  nothing  uncommon  to  get  married  as 

62 


early  as  fourteen  or  fifteen,  and  an  unmarried  woman 
of  thirty  was  rated  as  an  "  old  maid. ' '  It  was  a  quasi 
stigma  of  reproach  to  fail  to  receive  an  ' '  offer ' '  after 
the  girl  advanced  into  long  dresses.  The  girl  who  was 
coveted  by  a  half  dozen  beaux  at  one  time  was  the 
center  of  admiration  at  a  wedding  or  "infair."  No- 
body that  I  ever  heard  of  said  to  a  daughter,  "You 
have  got  to  marry,"  but  plenty  could  be  found,  who 
did  say.  "I  am  sorry  for  so  and  so,  with  a  house  full 
of  old  maids."  One  of  the  handsomest  women  I  re- 
member in  my  childhood  was  a  bride  at  twelve,  a 
mother  at  thirteen  and  who  had  raised  a  family  of 
fine  sons  and  daughters  before  she  had  reached  middle 
age  and  still  beautiful.  Nevertheless  there  were  plenty 
of  marryings  that  were  not  love  matches.  If  there 
was  a  prospect  of  a  plantation  and  slaves  as  dowry, 
there  was  a  rush  into  matrimony,  just  as  the  nobility 
of  Europe  court  rich  American  heiresses  and  the  ma- 
jority of  both  classes  were  more  than  apt  to  regret  the 
hasty  undertaking  after  a  trial  of  it. 

These  early  married  Southern  women  wore  lace 
caps  very  early  after  motherhood.  It  marked  the  dis- 
tinction between  married  and  single  in  promiscuous 
company.  And  the  babies  wore  caps  also  whenever 
dressed  for  going  out  with  the  young  mother.  I 
thought  my  delicate  mother  and  baby  sister  were  the 
prettiest  pair  in  the  world  when  I  saw  them  thus 
dressed  for  going  to  meeting  which  was  the  general 
custom  of  the  early  Georgians,  once  a  month.  Quick 
to  catch  on  I  put  caps  on  my  dolls,  big  and  little,  and 
occasionally  contrived  to  put  on  for  myself  one  of  my 
mother 's  caps  on  the  sly  when  I  took  on  a  spell  of  doll 
nursing  of  which  I  was  remarkably  fond.  "When  I 
was  about  seven  years  old  my  uncle  John  brought 
from  Augusta  a  drawn  silk  bonnet  for  my  mother  and 
also  one  for  myself.  The  silk  was  gathered  in  close 
rows  on  fine  whale  bone  strips  and  shaped  as  a  calash. 
Each  had  a  tiny  skirt  to  the  bonnet  and  inside  was  a 
row  of  small  pink  rosebuds  encircling  the  face.  Hers 
was  of  "silver  gray"  and  mine  "bottle  green."  This 
was  my  first  bought  bonnet  and  considered  a  beauty ! 
As  a  rule,  in  plain  households,  the  mother  purchased 

63 


a  nice  calico  dress  with  enough  to  make  the  little 
daughter  one  like  it.  If  there  were  scraps  left  a  bon- 
net was  made  for  both  and  families  could  be  identi- 
fied by  the  flowers  on  the  calico,  and  the  style  in  mak- 
ing. There  were  fine  English  and  French  calicoes  and 
muslins  and  "northern  homespun"  came  from  the 
factories  in  New  England  fine  and  white,  while  our 
southern  factory  cloth  was  rough  and  unbleached  af- 
ter cotton  mills  were  erected  in  Georgia.  As  my 
father  had  a  store,  I  began  to  wear  "prunella"  shoes 
very  early.  They  were  made  of  cloth  as  well  as 
leather  but  only  used  for  dress  up,  not  for  service.  I 
had  plaid  woolen  dresses  at  various  times  but  gener- 
ally my  mother  cut  down  her  worn  or  out  of  date 
frocks  for  my  use.  My  first  silk  dress  was  a  "made 
over."  This  descended  to  my  small  sister  after  I  had 
outgrown  it.  When  I  had  reached  the  age  of  ten  the 
fashionables  wore  voluminous  skirts  and  many  of 
them.  The  underskirts  were  starched  as  stiff  as  pos- 
sible, and  I  remember  hearing  a  friend  of  my  mother 
say  she  had  on  at  that  time  eight  petticoats  beside 
the  outside  frock  made  of  "balzarine."  Something 
like  the  voile  of  modern  dress  goods.  As  she  came 
down  the  street  she  was  like  a  ship  in  full  sail.  Her 
dress  skirt  was  as  wide  as  the  sidewalk.  The  body  to 
the  dress  was  tight  as  beeswax  and  she  was  laced  until 
her  beaux  could  nearly  span  her  waist  with  both 
hands.  Everybody,  women  and  children,  wore  bon- 
nets. Hats  belonged  to  the  masculine.  Artificial  flow- 
ers were  plentiful  on  these  bonnets  but  when  a  young 
woman  was  religious  or  became  converted  she  laid 
aside  her  flowers  along  with  her  finger  rings  and 
breastpin.  And  I  never  can  forget  my  feelings  when 
I  heard  a  woman  pray  in  meeting  for  the  first  time. 
It  came  like  a  "clap  out  of  a  clear  sky."  She  had 
been  talking  to  a  bench  of  "mourners"  and  broke 
loose,  in  the  fervor  of  her  pleadings.  It  was  the  talk 
of  the  town  for  a  good  while.  Some  said  it  would  not 
do  at  all — others  said  she  was  so  good  that  she  must 
be  forgiven,  but  the  majority  said  she  should  have 
kept  silent.    "Aunt  Annie  Bird,"  as  she  was  known 

64 


to  us,  continued  to  pray  aloud  at  protracted  meetings 
but  she  was  ' '  one  by  herself. ' ' 

Nevertheless  it  was  a  very  common  thing  for  women 
to  shout  at  revivals.  Perhaps  there  were  then  more 
women  shouters  than  masculines.  Sometimes  the  ex- 
citement made  them  faint  but  the  difference  between  a 
shouting  woman  and  a  praying  woman  was  never 
clearly  defined  in  my  youthful  mind,  as  connected 
with  St.  Paul's  oft'  quoted  adjuration  for  women  to 
"keep  silence  in  the  church." 

In  later  years  there  is  more  praying  than  shouting 
in  public  gatherings  by  women,  yet  there  are  ministers 
who  are  stubbornly  averse  and  use  sledge-hammer 
logic  against  such  women  who  are  full  of  religious  fer- 
vor, and  devoted  to  religious  exercises,  and  the  most 
assiduous  church  goers  in  their  respective  congrega- 
tions. 

There  were  many  noted  revivals  in  the  middle  years 
of  my  life  and  being  a  Methodist  myself  I  applaud 
these  revival  occasions,  because  they  awakened  the 
minds  of  many  sinners,  connected  broken  friendships 
and  made  the  children  aware  that  religion  stood  for 
something  better  than  mere  morality  at  home,  and 
could  save  the  drunkard  and  bring  peace  and  domestic 
happiness  into  divided  households.  The  patience  and 
fortitude  of  long-suffering  women  who,  full  of  zeal 
and  the  Holy  Ghost  and  always  remarkable  examplers 
of  Christian  excellence  and  piety,  under  this  demand 
for  "women  to  keep  silence,"  has  been  an  enigma  to 
many  good  men  as  well  as  women. 

I  recall  a  revival  of  religion  in  Decatur,  Ga.,  when 
I  was  a  young  girl,  where  Rev.  Alexander  Means, 
Bishop  Jas.  0.  Andrew,  Judge  Longstreet  and  other 
noted  Methodist  divines  gave  weeks  of  service,  daily 
and  nightly  sermons,  and  which  resulted  in  securing 
a  large  membership  and  which  is  felt  to  this  good  day 
in  regions  around  and  about  Atlanta,  the  present  me- 
tropolis of  our  state,  in  Methodist  families.  I  went  to 
school  in  Oxford  with  daughters  of  Dr.  Means,  Judge 
Longstreet  and  Bishop  Andrew  and  my  remembrance 
of  those  dearly  beloved  friends  of  my  youth  have 
been  a  well-spring  of  pleasure  in  my  own  journey 

65 


through  life.  I  am  doubtless  the  sole  survivor  of  those 
mentioned  here. 

I  must  not  omit  mention  of  the  annual  picnics  of 
Dr.  Wilson's  school  at  Stone  Mountain.  Everybody 
was  glad  to  go;  some  by  carriages  and  wagons  and 
multitudes  by  the  Georgia  railroad  after  it  was  set 
a-going.  The  first  passenger  conductor  that  I  remem- 
ber was  Col.  George  Adair,  the  elder,  and  he  became 
an  institution  in  which  both  passengers  and  railroad 
men  took  pride. 

The  story  of  Atlanta 's  early  days  can  never  be  fitly 
told  without  including  an  extended  notice  of  Col. 
George  Adair,  the  elder.  His  sister  was  my  early 
school  mate  and  when  we  had  young  lady  guests  with 
us  Col.  Adair  was  most  helpful,  because  he  chaperoned 
numberless  beaux  to  make  my  single  aunties  have  a 
good  time.  In  those  generous  old  days  it  was  delight- 
ful to  be  there.  I  was  permitted  to  sit  with  the  gay 
crowd  around  a  glowing  hickory  fire  and  listen  to  the 
jokes  as  well  as  the  music  and  general  merriment,  un- 
til my  bed  time  arrived.  My  mother  was  a  champion 
cake  maker  and  there  were  waiters  passed  around  with 
all  sorts  of  light  refreshments.  I  was  often  privately 
instructed  that  such  small  girls  as  myself  should  be 
only  seen  and  not  heard.  In  those  merry  old  days 
what  I  could  see  was  very  satisfying. 

Col.  Adair  joked  everybody,  myself  included.  One 
time  he  got  turned  down  and  I  was  hilarious  over  it. 
It  was  a  very  cold  evening  and  the  party  of  young 
gentlemen  collected  near  the  blazing  fire.  First  one 
and  then  another  would  inquire.  "How  are  your 
feet  feeling,  Mr.  Adair?"  For  awhile  he  refused  to 
notice  the  questions.  The  young  ladies  were  given  a 
hint,  and  they  were  choking  with  laughter,  over  what 
was  told  them.  Somebody  also  said  "your  boots  are  a 
perfect  fit,"  and  the  girls  screamed  with  laughter.  To 
make  a  long  story  short,  Mr.  Adair  had  on  a  fine  new 
pair  of  high-top  boots  that  fitted  him  "like  a  bug's 
shirt,"  and  he  struggled  a  good  while  when  dressing 
to  get  into  them.  He  found  out  his  companions  were 
going  to  get  the  joke  delivered  when  he  put  out  his 
shapely  feet  and  quietly  said  to  the  folks,  "I  tried  to 

66 


get  on  two  pair  of  socks,  tore  them  into  ribbons  and 
failed  and  these  rascals  are  dying  to  tell  you  that  I  am 
a  sockless  joker  and  they  want  to  turn  me  down  and 
make  these  girls  laugh  at  me."  My  mother  had  to 
send  me  to  bed  I  enjoyed  the  episode  so  hilariously. 
A  dozen  or  more  years  ago  Col.  Adair  gave  an  in- 
terview to  Miss  Isma  Dooley  on  Old  Atlanta  days  that 
all  those  who  were  mentioned  enjoyed  heartily. 


"ATLANTA'S     EARLY    SOCIETY. 

' '  But  with  the  name  '  Atlanta, '  society  seems  to  hare  begun 
here,  and  the  first  parties  I  remember  attending  were  at  the  old 
Atlanta  hotel  built  when  the  road  was  extended  from  Atlanta 
to  Marietta.  The  new  engine  brought  here  at  the  time  was 
hauled  by  mules  from  Madison,  and  the  first  car,  built  in  the 
penitentiary  at  Milledgeville,  came  the  same  way. 

"Dr.  Joseph  Thompson  moved  up  from  Decatur,  and  build- 
ing the  Atlanta  hotel,  gave  the  place  its  first  rights  to  be 
called  'town.'  His  family  was  a  most  interesting  one,  and  his 
two  daughters  were  then  Georgia  belles.  Mary  Jane  Thomp- 
son, now  Mrs.  Richard  Peters,  and  Julia,  the  late  Mrs.  Orme,  of 
West  Point.  The  other  girls  I  remember  in  Atlanta  at  the 
time,  were  Miss  Lou  Loyd,  whose  father  built  the  old  Wash- 
ington hotel ;  Judge  Meade 's  three  pretty  daughters,  Misses 
Kate  and  Jane  Kelsey,  and  Colonel  Rhodes '  two  daughters,  and 
then  the  visiting  girls  that  would  pass  through  and  stop  over  for 
a  night  at  the  Atlanta  hotel.  Atlanta  always  was  a  good  stand 
for  visiting  girls. 

"  'Who  were  the  beans?  Well,  there  were  several  very 
prominent  society  beans.  I  went  out  myself, '  modestly  re- 
marked the  colonel.  'Then  there  was  William  Priestly  Orme 
and  W.  C.  Printup.  We  all  held  lucrative  positions  at  the  time, 
being  conductors  on  the  railroad,  and  as  our  rivals  we  had  the 
good-looking  conductors  from  the  Western  and  Atlantic  rail- 
road— Joe  Bennett  and  Jim  Dobbs,  and  W.  A.  Huff  and  George 
Jones,  of  the  Macon  and  Northern  railroad. 

"Our  parties  were  all  given  at  the  Atlanta  hotel,  and  we 
called  them  '  soires. '  I  didn  't  know  why  they  gave  them  that 
name  then,'  said  the  colonel  chuckling,  'but  my  youngest  grand- 
daughter, Lizzie,  now  studying  French,  told  me  a  year  or  so 
ago,  'Why,  grandpa,  all  evening  parties  are  appropriately 
celled  soires.     That 's  the  meaning  of  the  word. ' 

"These  soirees  began  early  in  the  evening  about  8  o'clock, 
and  were  generally  over  about  the  time  the  'sparking'  begins 
now.  The  orchestra,"  said  the  colonel,  presumably  guying  the 
society  column,  "was  not  hidden  behind  a  bank  of  palms  and 
hot-house  plants,  or  screened  off  by  silken  portieres  veiled  in 
smilax,  but  the  fiddlers  sat  right  where  they  could  be  seen  and 

67 


heard  when  they  called  out  the  figures,  as  we  all  danced  the  old 
Virginia  reel. 

"Our  first  fiddler  was  old  Howard  Brown,  while  Guilford, 
Judge  Ezzard  's  barber,  played  the  fiddle  or  the  triangle,  either 
one  well.  Howard  Brown,  however,  imbibed  too  freely  now  and 
then  for  the  spirit  of  the  times,  and  Erby  Powell,  the  well- 
digger,  was  then  called  in  to  take  his  place.  Erby  was  a  fine 
fiddler  as  well  as  digger. 

"I  remember  one  of  the  finest  soirees  we  ever  had  was  given 
in  compliment  to  Mary  Willis  Cobb,  of  Athens  (now  Mrs. 
Johnson,  the  mother  of  Mrs.  A.  W.  Hill  and  Mrs.  Hugh  Ha- 
gan.)  Mary  Willis  was  quite  the  belle,  and  had  more  tony 
party  clothes  than  the  rest  of  the  girls,  because  she  had  spent 
a  winter  in  Washington,  where  her  brother,  Howell  Cobb,  was 
representative  from  Georgia.  She  was  such  a  pretty,  round, 
plump  girl,  with  laughing,  beaming  eyes,  and  danced  better  than 
most  girls  do  these  days. 

' '  Did  we  have  a  chaperon  at  these  parties  ?  Yes,  one  that 
we  all  loved — Mrs.  Joseph  Thompson.  I  can  so  well  remember 
how  she  would  enjoy  the  frolics,  and  I  remember,  too,  that  often 
times,  sitting  near  her  and  dozing  to  sleep  soon  after  the  fid- 
dlers would  begin,  was  her  little  girl,  Joan  (now  Mrs.  Tom 
Clarke).  Mrs.  Thompson  was  one  of  the  finest  women  I  ever 
knew — of  imposing  dignity  in  appearance,  with  the  finest  head 
and  best  heart.  She  was  the  leader  in  all  interests  for  good 
in  this  community,  and  I  recognize  so  many  of  her  character- 
istics in  her  granddaughter,  Nellie  (Mrs.  Nellie  Peters  Black.) 

"About  this  time  the  town  began  to  enlarge  and  the  social 
circle  was  brightened  by  such  pretty  girls  as  were  Laura  Far- 
rar,  Harriet  Eliza  Cone,  now  Mrs.  Hayden,  and  Jane  Killian, 
now  Mrs.  L.  P.   Grant.  , 

' '  I  remember,  too,  when  Charles  Latimer 's  two  pretty,  smart 
daughters  first  appeared  in  Atlanta,  Bebecca  and  Mary  (Mrs. 
William  H.  Felton  and  Mrs.  Mary  L.  McLendon).  Bebecca 
was  considered  the  smartest  and  Mary  the  prettiest,  but  don't 
put  that  down  for  publication,  because  women  are  curious,  and 
the  two  sisters  might  have  a  dispute  over  the  truth  of  that 
statement. 

"In  them  by  the  way  is  a  wonderful  blending  of  parental 
characteristics.  Their  father  was  one  of  the  stanchest  and 
strongest  of  men,  very  much  in  advance  of  the  times  as  to 
theories  and  thought  which  accounts  for  their  force  of  character 
and  advanced  ideas,  while  their  mother  was  the  gentlest  and 
most  religious  of  women,  imparting  to  them  their  religious 
ardor  and  stand  in  the  temperance  movement. 

"I  would  not  undertake  to  enumerate  the  events  that  marked 
the  progress  of  Atlanta  society  after  the  war,  but  now  and  then 
when  I  see  some  prominent  woman,  or  read  of  her  achievements, 
I  recall  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  her.  For  instance  I  never 
read  of  the  president  of  the  Georgia  clubs  that  I  do  not  recall 
Mrs.  Lowe  as  a  bride,  when  she  appeared  at  church  in  a  blue 
velvet  frock.  The  women  folks  talked  a  great  deal  about  it, 
and  I  believe  they  said  it  was  made  in  Baltimore.     It  created 

68 


quite  as  much  comment  in  society  on  the  west  side,  then  the 
quarter  for  the  city's  aristocracy  (I  still  live  there)  as  did  the 
black  silk  dress  worn  by  Mrs.  Joseph  Smith,  the  grandmother  of 
Mrs,  Will  Spalding  and  Mr.  J.  E.  Butler,  when  she  came  to 
Atlanta  before  the  war,  at  the  time  that  Joe  Smith  succeeded 
Wash  Collier  as  postmaster. 

' '  There  are  few  things,  however, ' '  mused  the  colonel,  ' '  in 
which  Atlanta  has  progressed  more  wonderfully  than  in  her. 
livery,  for  when  I  brought  'ole  miss'  here  a  bride  I  had  to 
wait  three  days  before  I  could  get  a  buggy  to  take  her  for  a 
drive.  She  was  so  pretty — a  great  deal  prettier  than  any  of 
my  daughters  or  granddaughters — and  I  wanted  to  show  her 
off.  Finally  I  managed  to  borrow  Oliver  Jones 's  buggy,  and 
his  little  mare,  '  Jennie  Lind, '  and  we  took  our  first  drive 
together  in  Atlanta. ' ' 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  the  advent  of  a  real  railroad 
in  a  poor  section  where  no  railroads  had  been  expected 
and  what  the  eight-mile  travel  to  Stone  Mountain 
stood  for  with  a  popular  conductor  who  provided  su- 
gar plums  for  the  children  and  rare  and  racy  jokes  for 
the  grown-ups!  There  was  a  tower  on  the  mountain 
that  I  saw  first  when  I  was  a  small  child.  There  was 
that  day  dancing  galore  in  the  lower  hall  of  the  tower. 
A  candy  vendor  persuaded  my  father  to  buy  for  me  a 
white  candy  dove  with  buckshot  for  its  eyes. 

That  first  tower  was  blown  down  in  a  storm  and  its 
successor  was  erected  on  the  highest  point  on  the  moun- 
tain. The  second  one,  also,  went  to  the  discard,  but  in 
"White's  Miscellanies"  you  can  see  a  picture  of  the 
Stone  Mountain  and  its  noted  tower  taken  about  sev- 
enty years  ago.  I  remember  well  the  coming  together 
of  the  first  state  agricultural  society  ever  organized  in 
Georgia,  at  Stone  Mountain,  and  the  sensation  created 
thereby  in  1847  and  also  the  crowds  that  went  in  1848 
when  our  household  went  along  with  all  the  neighbors 
who  could  be  spared  from  home  on  that  occasion.  The 
little  town  had  meagre  hotel  facilities  and  the  visitors 
from  Madison,  Greensboro  and  as  far  down  as  Au- 
gusta, completely  swamped  their  accommodations.  I 
remember  that  day  riding  in  a  railroad  box  car,  and 
sitting  on  a  squash  sent  for  exhibition  that  tipped  the 
beam  at  eighty-two  pounds.  Some  squash  that,  but  I 
was  weighed  that  same  day  and  marked  eighty-two 
pounds  on  the  scales.  My  father  remarked,  "some 
girl  and  some  squash."    It  is  astonishing  how  small 

69 


incidents  stay  with  you  when  greater  ones  go  glim- 
mering into  oblivion.  The  politicians  were  active  at 
that  early  day  and  the  defeated  ones  complained  that 
the  new  agricultural  society  was  only  a  political  ma- 
chine. History  repeats  itself  and  the  society  chap- 
eroned several  governors  into  the  executive  chair  in 
later  years. 

Along  about  that  time  I  began  first  to  hear  about 
small  pox.  The  disease  was  brought  into  Atlanta  by 
a  guest  at  Thompson's  hotel  and  spread  panic  all 
through  that  section.  So  far  as  I  knew  it  was  the  first 
excitement  of  that  kind  in  upper  Georgia.  Until  then 
nobody,  old  or  young,  had  the  disease  or  had  been 
vaccinated.  Vaccine  matter  was  as  scarce  as  hen's 
teeth.  We  refugeed  to  the  river  plantation  and  I 
there  attended  a  rural  school  where  I  saw  the  school 
boys  race  out  of  doors  to  punish  a  smart  Aleck  who 
went  by  crying  "school  butter."  I  learned  to  play 
marbles  and  study  Latin  Grammar  and  carried  to 
school  in  a  little  basket  a  small  bottle  of  molasses  for 
use  at  lunch  time.  Nothing  in  later  life  has  been 
more  appetizing  than  those  good  biscuits  with  holes 
punched  with  my  forefinger  and  then  filled  with  mo- 
lasses. We  also  ate  hard-boiled  eggs  and  cold  sweet 
potatoes  and  green  apples  with  salt  without  telling 
about  the  latter  at  home.  We  sat  on  hard  benches 
ranged  along  the  wall  with  books  lying  under  us  on 
the  floor.  I  met  a  truckster  in  Atlanta  last  week,  over 
eighty,  who  went  to  school  with  me  in  those  early 
days.  We  were  delighted  to  renew  acquaintance.  At 
recess  time  we  paddled  in  the  spring  branch  occasion- 
ally with  bare  feet  and  the  boys  brought  red  apples 
and  plums  in  their  pockets  for  their  favorite  girls. 
When  a  rain  cloud  rose  up  the  pony  was  sent  for  my- 
self and  small  sister.  I  rode  in  the  saddle  and  she  sat 
behind  and  held  on  to  my  waist  with  both  of  her  dear 
little  arms.  Sometimes  we  would  be  dripping  wet 
from  head  to  foot,  and  the  thunder  and  lightning  ter- 
rified us  both  while  I  whipped  up  the  pony  and  tried 
to  comfort  the  little  one  behind  me.  Surely  those 
were  exciting,  happy  days.  It  was  a  land  of  plenty 
and  I  took  no  thought  of  the  morrow. 

70 


My  college  course  began  when  I  was  half-way  be- 
tween fifteen  and  sixteen — Junior,  half  advanced. 
Madison,  Ga.,  was  a  remarkable  educational  centre, 
the  Baptists  and  Methodists  had  each  a  girls'  college. 
LaGrange  had  the  same  equipment  and  those  were  the 
only  high-grade  girls'  schools  in  upper  Georgia  in  my 
early  life  and  north  of  Wesleyan  College  located  in 
Macon,  the  latter  claiming  to  be  the  first,  among  wo- 
men's colleges  in  the  United  States.  There  was  no 
railroad  to  LaGrange  so  Madison  won  the  day  with 
my  parents.  My  mother  had  attended  school  there 
also  in  her  girlhood  days,  and  mother  said  "Don't 
forget  we  must  be  convenient  to  the  railroad  if  this 
girl  gets  sick.  It  will  take  two  long  days  and  more 
to  drive  to  LaGrange  in  the  barouche,"  so  I  went  to 
Madison. 

Eev.  Lucius  Wittich  had  a  reputation  among  Meth- 
odists for  learning  and  disciplinary  qualities  as  pres- 
ident, and  I  went  to  his  house  to  board  and  received 
my  diploma  in  July,  1852,  sixty-five  long  years  ago. 
It  was  a  great  and  appreciated  opportunity  and  I 
had  a  royal  good  time ;  shared  the  first  honor  with  a 
class  mate,  read  a  valedictory  essay  and  played  time 
and  again  during  the  commencement  exercises  on 
piano  and  guitar,  and  received  a  real  calf-skin  di- 
ploma and,  more  than  all,  made  my  parents  very  hap- 
py that  I  had  not  failed  to  make  good.  When  I  see 
(as  I  did  see  last  year)  one  hundred  and  eighty  odd 
young  ladies  at  the  Milledgeville  Normal  and  Indus- 
trial college  receive  diplomas  in  one  day  and  knew 
what  that  meant  to  parents  at  home,  who  had  made 
many  sacrifices  and  spent  money  to  give  those  girls  a 
start  in  life,  I  could  tell  very  accurately  what  progress 
had  been  made  in  sixty-five  years  when  there  were 
only  a  few  denominational  schools  for  girls  and  only  a 
limited  number  of  girls  who  were  fortunate  in  secur- 
ing a  college  education,  and  every  dollar  expended 
came  out  of  the  self-sacrificing  parents  in  the  home, 
and  not  a  free  school  for  the  masses  throughout  the 
confines  of  the  Empire  State  of  the  South.  We  have 
so  many  opportunities  now  compared  to  the  few  in 

71 


the  long  ago.  I  also  wonder  that  there  is  not  more 
appreciation  and  progress  thaii  we  find  in  1917. 

I  married  shortly  after  I  was  eighteen,  and  my  en- 
tire life  was  soon  absorbed  in  home  service  and  home 
making  and  the  care  of  my  babies  and  the  duties  that 
fell  upon  women  of  my  class  and  kind  in  caring  for  a 
considerable  number  of  slaves  and  in  keeping  up  with 
the  requirements  of  a  plantation  home  in  the  country. 

Before  I  forget  it  I  will  mention  the  interest  which 
colleges  for  women  excited  in  the  public  jnind  about 
the  time  I  graduated  at  Madison  Female  college  in 
1852.  Great  crowds  gathered  and  were  delighted. 
There  were  twelve  girls  in  my  class  and  so  far  as  I 
know  all  are  dead  but  two  at  this  writing.  I  was  en- 
tered at  fifteen  years  and  six  months  and  graduated  at 
sharp  seventeen.  I  took  the  entire  course,  also  lessons 
on  piano  and  guitar.  I  had  pencil  drawing  also  for 
all  of  which  I  had  a  strong  liking.  I  had  no  time  to 
throw  away  to  keep  it  up  and  during  one  session  I  un- 
dertook French.  He  was  an  American,  the  teacher, 
and  I  had  had  a  previous  French  teacher  raised  in 
France,  so  we  had  more  than  one  discussion  on  the 
right  and  wrong  of  our  French  lessons.  But  my  music 
teacher  was  an  enthusiast  and  we  worked  together 
famously.  We  speedily  became  a  mutual  admiration 
society  composed  of  two.  Oh,  it  is  sweet  to  remember 
how  often  at  the  close  of  my  music  hour  he  would  say 
"Play  for  me  an  accompaniment  for  my  violin  and 
we  will  have  De-Beriot's  Sixth  Air.  I  enjoy  see- 
ing your  love  for  music  the  best  there  is."  In  rural 
neighborhoods  seventy  years  ago  pianos  were  very 
scarce  and  I  am  still  thankful  that  I  had  a  willing 
mind  and  was  ready  to  play  for  everybody.  My  father 
had  a  flour  mill,  also  a  store,  a  woodshop  and  black- 
smith shop  and  there  were  always  people  busy  coming 
and  going. 

A  few  weeks  ago  a  young  gentleman  almost  a 
stranger  to  me,  told  me  of  a  visit  to  lower  Georgia  and 
of  meeting  a  gray-haired  man  in  his  eighties  who  had 
asked  about  me,  etc.  The  octogenarian  told  him  of  his 
delight  in  his  young  days  when  he  was  allowed  to  go 
to  Latimer's  mill  and  then  could  go  to  the  house  and 

72 


ask  me  to  play  for  him.  He  told  my  young  neighbor 
of  my  willingness  to  oblige  him  and  the  others  that 
were  with  him  and  what  a  glimpse  of  real  life  and 
melody  I  thereby  opened  to  him.  It  gave  me  sincerest 
joy  to  find  this  compliment  returning  to  me  after 
many  days.  When  the  war  of  the  fateful  sixties  left 
us  impoverished,  obliged  to  earn  the  bread  we  ate,  un- 
til the  plantation  could  be  restored  and  farm  labor  se- 
cured, my  husband  and  myself  decided  to  open  a 
school  in  Cartersville  and  do  something  for  the  young 
people  who  had  been  almost  without  school  facilities, 
and  also  provide  the  wherewith  for  a  start,  making 
some  sort  of  an  honest  living  owing  to  our  poverty. 
How  I  enjoyed  that  work  would  take  a  volume  to  tell 
and  my  diligence  in  my  own  school  days  was  a  prime 
factor  for  success  in  this  strenuous  time. 

I  have  never  been  an  admirer  of  our  public  school 
system,  set  up  in  reconstruction  days,  and  full  of  han- 
dicaps and  infirmities.  Some  years  ago  I  was  invited 
by  the  Legislature  of  Georgia  to  meet  with  joint  ses- 
sion of  House  and  Senate  and  talk  it  over  from  my 
viewpoint.  I  will  include  the  newspaper  report  of 
my  address  on  that  occasion  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 
Since  that  time  the  system  has  grown  more  unwieldy 
as  to  size  and  more  costly  as  to  expense.  It  is  sur- 
prising to  know  that  our  law-makers  did  not  appre- 
ciate the  impossibility  of  covering  the  ground  and 
getting  all  the  children  educated  by  failing  to  com- 
mand compulsory  attendance. 

When  Georgia  legislators  assumed  the  liberty  to 
commander  or  conscript  your  tax  money  to  educate 
my  child  it  was  only  just,  fair  and  equitable  to  com- 
pel me  to  send  that  child  to  school  or  know  the  reason 
why.  I  fully  understand  that  public  utilities  are 
hard  to  manage,  but  I  also  agree  with  a  level-headed 
old  legislator  who  was  "agin  the  whole  business,  be- 
cause it  is  the  easiest  thing  to  do,  spend  other  people's 
money. ' ' 

The  basic  principle  in  such  education  is  protection 
against  ignorance  and  illiteracy,  it  being  a  preventive 
to  crime  and  disorder,  as  elaborately  expounded,  but 
public  school  education  is  or  should  be  limited  to  a 

78 


plain  English  education,  for  it  is  a  well-established 
fact  that  many  of  our  greatest  criminals  are  among 
the  best  educated  and  it  is  rank  Socialism  to  take  your 
money  by  force  for  any  such  purpose.  Our  public 
school  education  is  a  sort  of  moulding  machine  where 
all  the  children  are  herded  together  and  forced  into 
the  moulds  prepared  by  theorists,  sometimes  thor- 
oughly impractical  in  general  use  and  application. 

In  my  part  of  the  country  a  girl  or  boy  begins  to 
go  to  school  at  sharp  six  and  holds  on  until  nearly 
nineteen  or  twenty.  The  boys  are  not  fitted  for  any 
calling  or  profession  and  generally  serve  as  "bundle 
carriers"  for  merchants,  and  girls  must  then  go  to 
some  other  place  to  become  equipped  for  making  a  de- 
cent living.  But  somebody  will  say  "Mrs.  Felton  is 
an  old  fogy,  behind  the  times,  a  slow  coach,  etc." 
There  is  only  one  answer  to  meet  such  charges:  It  is 
a  gigantic  scheme  to  squander  tax  money,  growing 
bigger  every  year  and  standing  in  the  way  of  a  better 
and  more  satisfactory  way  of  securing  education  for 
the  very  people  who  need  it  most  and  care  the  least 
for  this  opportunity  of  free  tuition.  Up  to  this  time 
there  have  been  millions  of  tax  money  drafted  or  con- 
scripted out  of  those  who  own  something,  to  pay 
teachers  and  school  commissioners  while  the  parents 
of  no-account  homes  can  completely  defeat  the  under- 
taking by  keeping  the  children  in  the  cotton  patch  or 
in  cotton  mill  work  instead  of  attending  school. 

Railway  travel  in  Georgia  was  nothing  like  the  pres- 
ent use  of  rail  passenger  transportation.  The  rates 
were  high,  connections  difficult  and  when  you  started 
a  journey  you  expected  to  get  back  of  course  but  when 
you  might  get  home  was  uncertain. 

I  remember  a  trip  my  father  and  myself  took  in  the 
summer  of  either  1846  or  47.  We  were  to  go  to  Bruns- 
wick, Ga.  There  was  no  way  to  get  there  from  De- 
catur unless  we  first  took  train  to  Atlanta,  lately 
named  from  Marthasville.  Then  we  started  to  Ma- 
con. We  had  a  before-day  breakfast  and  traveled  un- 
til 3  P.  M.  to  reach  Macon,  one  hundred  miles.  We 
went  to  the  best  hotel  and  later  walked  about  in  the 
city.    We  were  told  that  the  train  to  Savannah  start- 

74 


ed  early  in  the  morning  and  there  was  nothing  to  do 
but  hang  up  until  next  morning.  As  we  had  small 
experience  with  railroads  that  did  not  bother  us.  We 
started  on  Thursday,  left  Macon  Friday  morning  and 
traveled  until  after  dark  to  make  the  trip  to  Savan- 
nah. A  tremendous  rain  storm  overtook  us  and  the 
track  was  often  under  water.  The  train  hands  fre- 
quently shoveled  off  the  wet  sand  from  the  rails.  Af- 
ter dark  we  were  able  to  get  seats  in  an  omnibus  which 
jolted  and  careened  over  the  flooded  streets  until  we 
were  able  to  go  in  the  Pulaski  House.  Securing  a 
room  we  prepared  for  the  hotel  supper.  We  had  been 
traveling,  as  you  see,  two  whole  days  to  cover  a  dis- 
tance that  is  trifling  at  this  time. 

Next  morning  we  bought  tickets  on  a  steamboat  that 
made  semi-weekly  trips  to  St.  Augustine,  Fla.,  touch- 
ing at  Darien  and  Brunswick  en  route,  going  and  com- 
ing. It  was  a  fine  boat  they  said.  Everything  was  fine 
to  me,  a  girl  of  eleven  or  twelve  perhaps.  We  went  the 
inland  passage  around  and  among  the  historic  islands 
off  the  coast  of  Georgia.  We  reached  Brunswick  about 
eight  o'clock  Sunday  morning.  There  was  no  landing 
wharf.  Brunswick  had  experienced  a  boom  and  the 
boom  had  collapsed.  We  were  lifted  down  from  the 
steamboat  into  a  small  boat.  We  were  rowed  along 
until  the  beach  became  troublesome,  so  a  sailor  picked 
me  up  in  his  arms  like  a  baby  and  waded  to  hard 
ground.  My  father  rode  pick-a-pack  on  the  shoulder 
of  a  robust  sailor.  There  was  one  other  passenger,  a 
victim  of  the  boom  catostrophe.  He  told  vis  the  big 
hotel  was  shut  up  and  the  whole  thing  was  flat,  but  we 
might  get  lodgings  with  a  plain  family  that  fed  pretty 
well  and  were  clever,  all  of  which  was  a  modest  esti- 
mate of  some  of  the  cleverest  folks  I  ever  met.  We 
were  the  only  guests  and  they  fed  us  up  to  the  limit 
on  sea  foods,  like  turtle  soup  and  eggs,  crabs  and 
shrimp  to  which  I  took  like  a  regular  fish.  My  fath- 
er's business  was  to  validate  some  land  deeds  and  the 
Inferior  Court  of  Glynn  county  met  on  Monday,  and 
that  part  being  settled  we  made  merry  until  the  boat 
came  back  Wednesday  evening  on  the  return  trip. 
We  fished  and  rode  in  little  boats  to  my  heart's  con- 

75 


tent.  Between  the  mosquitoes  and  the  hot  sun  my 
tender  skin  was  generally  blistered  where  exposed.  We 
reached  Savannah  Thursday  up  in  the  day  and  gave 
the  balance  of  the  time  to  sight-seeing  and  getting 
things  for  the  dear  mother  and  little  sister  at  home. 
There  were  such  heaps  of  things,  the  like  of  which  I 
had  never  dreamed  of,  that  decisions  were  hard  to 
make. 

Finally  our  generous  parent  said  "We  all  must 
have  shoes  and  I  know  the  numbers,"  so  we  went  to 
the  finest  shoe  store  we  could  find  and  bought  not  one 
pair  apiece,  but  two  pairs  each.  They  were  the  best 
he  could  find  and  my  first  experience  with  extrava- 
gant footwear. 

I  was  so  full  of  enjoyment,  wide  awake  in  every  fi- 
bre of  my  being,  not  a  bit  troubled  about  boys  and  in 
keen  pursuit  of  all  new  ideas,  that  my  father  said, 
"Wouldn't  you  like  to  see  Charleston  also?"  My 
answer  was  a  joyful  hug,  so  he  bought  tickets  on  a 
boat  called  the  "William  Seabrooke"  and  we  started 
out  to  ride  the  big  ocean  waves.  I  fared  all  right  until 
I  tried  to  dress  myself  next  morning  and  then  I  was  so 
seasick  my  father  had  to  come  to  me  and  carried  me  on 
the  upper  deck,  and  I  had  so  much  "mal-de-mare," 
that  I  have  shied  at  another  ocean  trip  and  will  never 
see  Europe  at  my  time  of  life.  We  remained  a  couple 
of  days  in  Charleston  and  it  required  the  best  of  two 
more  days  and  one  night  to  get  back  to  Decatur.  We 
were  very  fortunate  to  make  the  trip  in  such  good 
time,  as  they  told  us. 

The  4th  of  July  came  while  we  were  in  the  decayed 
city  of  Brunswick.  Everybody,  I  mean  men  and  boys, 
celebrated  with  guns  and  powder.  When  they  came 
around  where  I  was,  in  the  house  of  our  entertainers, 
and  fired  a  volley  or  two  under  the  floors,  I  was  scared 
badly  enough  to  be  averse  for  a  whole  lifetime  to  seek- 
ing entertainment  by  scaring  children  and  dogs  nearly 
to  death  with  shooting  frolics. 


76 


SLAVERY  IN  THE  SOUTH. 


When  I  received  the  Congressional  Record,  bearing 
date  July  16,  1917,  I  found  Hon.  Ben  Tillman  of 
South  Carolina  recorded  therein  and  discussing  slav- 
ery in  the  nation.  He  uses  the  following  words: 
' '  Slavery  was  a  curse  and  the  Civil  War  was  necessary 
to  destroy  it.  Nothing  else  could  have  done  it  because 
of  the  profit  there  was  in  it.  The  same  struggle  for 
freedom  and  the  rights  of  the  laboring  classes  in  Eu- 
rope is  going  on  right  now. ' '  He  reprinted  also  a  part 
of  an  address  he  made  at  Arlington  Cemetery  some 
years  ago.  "I  never  believed  it  possible  I  could  do  it, 
but  slowly  and  by  degrees  I  have  come  to  think  it  was 
best  that  the  South  should  be  defeated  and  for  me  to 
say  that  is  a  marvel  to  myself.  Slavery  was  a  curse 
that  had  to  be  destroyed  ere  the  South  and  the  world 
could  advance.  It  was  a  curse  for  which  the  South 
was  no  more  responsible  than  the  North.  Both  sec- 
tions were  responsible  and  both  paid  as  penance  four 
long  bloody  years  for  their  joint  sin." 

This  discussion  grew  out  of  the  late  riots  in  East 
St.  Louis,  where  negroes  were  mobbed  and  killed  and 
ordered  to  vacate.  I  think  this  confession  of  Hon. 
"Pitchfork  Ben"  was  perhaps  good  for  himself,  lately 
returned  from  a  sanitarium  and  not  a  candidate  for 
re-election  to  the  U.  S.  Senate,  but  it  will  not  be  en- 
thusiastically received  in  the  State  of  South  Carolina 
by  the  "fire-eating"  politicians  of  the  Palmetto 
State.  It  is  only  human  nature  to  defend  the  actions 
and  opinions  of  our  forbears,  and  South  Carolina's 
record  on  "nullification"  and  "secession"  make  it  ab- 
solutely impossible  that  Mr.  Tillman's  confession  will 
be  echoed  by  those  who  will  hereafter  vote  in  Senator 
Tillman's  successor.  But  this  belated  confession  gives 
me  a  text  for  my  present  writing,  and  I  propose  to  set 
down  the  very  words  employed  by  Georgia's  political 
leaders,  when  Georgia  followed  South  Carolina  out  of 
the  Federal  Union  in  the  winter  of  1860-61.  I  own 
a  complete  copy  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Secession 
convention.    There  are  very  few  in  perfect  preserva- 

77 


tion,  and  this  book  hoary  with  age  presents  the  official 
statement  of  Georgia's  grievances  against  those  who 
opposed  the  institution  of  domestic  slavery. 

What  Mr.  Tillman  thinks  or  what  I  think  is  a  very 
small  matter,  but  the  results  of  the  Georgia  Secession 
convention  are  sufficiently  important  to  be  carefully 
remembered  by  succeeding  generations.  As  a  pream- 
ble I  will  also  say  that  Georgia,  in  General  Ogle- 
thorpe's time,  discounted  and  discredited  African 
slavery,  but  the  "profit  in  it"  overcame  these  pruden- 
tial considerations.  After  the  Yazoo  Fraud  was  final- 
ly settled,  the  inrush  of  slaveholders  to  the  Carolinas 
and  Georgia  became  very  great,  and  the  new  comers 
brought  along  their  slaves  that  they  owned  in  Mary- 
land and  Virginia  under  the  laws  prevailing  in  the 
early  colonies. 

I  will  not  attempt  to  record  in  this  connection  the 
opposition  that  northern  states  early  evinced  towards 
the  abolition  agitators.  The  "profit  in  it"  and  the 
sale  of  negroes  to  Southern  owners  made  business 
lively.  The  abolitionists  were  frequently  rotten-egged 
in  the  state  of  Massachusetts  in  their  attempts  to  se- 
cure a  hearing.  Perhaps  I  am  justified  in  saying  that 
abolition  oratory  continued  to  be  distasteful  to  the 
public  so  long  as  there  were  slaves  to  sell  to  southern 
planters  and  until  the  "profit"  in  them  became  nil. 
These  abolition  agitators  did  not  become  popular  until 
the  politicians  enlisted  the  northern  churches  in  this 
work  of  reform.  When  the  preachers  and  the  politi- 
cians joined  forces  the  row  began  in  dead  earnest,  and 
grew  apace. 

I  was  a  small  girl  when  I  became  acquainted  with 
Bishop  James  0.  Andrew  and  I  was  only  nine  years 
old  when  the  Methodist  church  split  over  a  negro  girl 
owned  by  Bishop  Andrew's  second  wife  in  1844.  The 
story  of  the  split  has  been  so  often  discussed— abused 
and  defended — that  I  am  not  inclined  to  say  any  more 
on  that  line,  at  this  time.  From  the  hour  when  the 
Methodist  brethren  separated  at  a  General  Confer- 
ence, until  Georgia  seceded  in  January,  1861,  this 
slavery  question  was  kept  to  the  front.  The  preachers 
of  the  Southern  church  quoted  the  Bible,  when  they 

78 


took  slavery  for  a  pulpit  discourse.  Our  Southern 
bishops  owned  slaves  and  vigorously  defended  the  in- 
stitution by  voice  and  pen. 

Slave  property  increased  rapidly.  Child  bearing 
sometimes  began  at  twelve  years  and  frequent  births 
made  a  heavy  per  cent  of  "profit."  According  to 
Hon.  Thos.  R.  R.  Cobb,  who  was  killed  at  the  battle 
of  Fredericksburg,  "the  greatest  evidence  of  wealth 
in  the  planter  was  the  number  of  his  slaves.  They 
gave  the  most  remunerative  income.  It  was  consid- 
ered the  very  best  property  to  give  to  children  and 
children  parted  from  their  slaves  with  greatest  reluct- 
ance."   These  are  plain  and  accurate  statements. 

Therefore,  these  Southern  planters  clung  to  their 
slave  property  and  continued  to  invest  money  in  slave 
property  in  Georgia  after  Sherman  marched  to  the 
sea.  It  was  nothing  out  of  the  common  for  a  planter 
to  pay  twelve  hundred  dollars  for  a  young,  stalwart 
negro  man,  and  a  girl  who  brought  easily  eight  hun- 
dred or  a  thousand  dollars  on  the  court  house  block 
might  be  relied  upon  to  bear  a  healthy  slave  child  once 
in  two  years.  Anybody  who  could  raise  sufficient 
money  invested  in  slaves. 

As  I  look  back  on  that  time  of  eager  slave  buying,  I 
am  amazed  at  the  lack  of  foresight  in  a  business  way. 
Every  nation  that  was  civilized  had  abandoned  do- 
mestic slavery  except  Brazil,  when  our  people  were  ap- 
parently confident  that  it  was  a  permanent  thing,  com- 
manded by  the  Bible  and  ordained  of  God. 

There  were  abuses,  many  of  them.  I  do  not  pretend 
to  defend  these  abuses.  There  were  kind  masters  and 
cruel  masters.  There  were  violations  of  the  moral 
law  that  made  mulattoes  as  common  as  blackberries. 
In  this  one  particular  slavery  doomed  itself.  When 
white  men  were  willing  to  put  their  own  offspring  in 
the  kitchen  and  corn  field  and  allowed  them  to  be  sold 
into  bondage  as  slaves  and  degraded  them  as  another 
man's  slave,  the  retribution  of  wrath  was  hanging 
over  this  country  and  the  South  paid  penance  in  four 
years  of  bloody  war. 

The  Southern  slaveholders  looked  on  the  "profit" 
side  so  long  that  they  believed  what  they  said.    They 

79 


proved  their  sincerity  by  buying  and  herding  together 
large  slave  families.  The  abolitionists  were  the  best 
hated  people  ever  known  within  my  knowledge  and 
the  slave  owner  had  no  mercy  when  the  abolitionists 
in  the  pulpit  discussed  him.  It  was  a  time  of  madness, 
the  sort  of  mad-hysteria  that  always  presages  war. 
There  seems  to  be  nothing  left  but  war — when  any 
population  in  any  sort  of  a  nation  gets  violently  an- 
gry, civilization  falls  down  and  religion  forsakes  its 
hold  on  the  consciences  of  human  kind  in  such  times 
of  public  madness.  "Whom  the  gods  would  destroy 
they  first  make  mad." 

We  Southerners  claimed  almost  divine  right  to  the 
ownership  of  chivalry  but  it  would  have  outlawed  the 
most  consecrated  preacher  known  to  that  era  of  our 
history  if  he  had  dared  to  say  that  a  slave  woman  had 
divine  right  to  own  her  own  liberty  or  direct  the  lives 
of  her  own  children.  Some  of  the  finest  educators, 
pious  and  godly  men  threw  up  their  positions  in  the 
South  early  in  the  struggle  and  returned  to  northern 
latitudes  after  becoming  residents  in  Georgia. 

My  husband,  Dr.  W.  H.  Felton,  often  regretted  the 
going  away  of  Rev.  Stephen  Olin,  after  he  had  been 
associated  with  Franklin  College.  The  slightest  dis- 
affection on  the  slavery  question  would  have  vacated 
every  editorial  chair  within  the  limits  of  the  state. 

The  story  of  our  disagreements  with  the  North 
filled  a  part  of  every  page  in  every  official  record  of 
congressional  legislation.  This  heat  and  fury  increas- 
ed at  every  session  of  that  body  until  the  break  came, 
and  the  Southern  States  pulled  out  and  set  up  for 
themselves.  We,  in  the  South,  honestly  believed  we 
could  engineer  a  peaceable  separation.  There  is  no 
doubt  of  the  sincerity  of  the  belief.  It  was  not  an 
attempt  at  revolt  or  insurrection  or  anything  else  but 
a  resolute  intention  to  own  slaves  and  regulate  slavery 
just  as  our  forbears  had  been  doing  for  nearly  a  hun- 
dred years. 

So  it  happened  that  South  Carolina  went  out  first, 
followed  by  Alabama,  Mississippi  and  Florida.  Geor- 
gia saw  she  was  up  against  a  tremendous  proposition 
and  as  I  am  only  concerned  to  prove  that  it  was  slav- 

80 


ery  and  nothing  but  slavery  that  made  Georgia  secede, 
I  find  in  the  records  of  the  Georgia  Secession  Conven- 
tion certain  indisputable  facts,  and  nothing  but  facts, 
will  furnish  reliable  history.  Every  county  in  Geor- 
gia had  representation  and  Hon.  Geo.  W.  Crawford 
was  chosen  as  president  by  acclamation.  Commission- 
ers from  South  Carolina  and  Alabama  were  there  to 
speak.  Rules  for  the  convention  were  adopted.  Gov. 
Joseph  E.  Brown  and  ex-Governor  Howell  Cobb  were 
invited  to  seats  on  the  floor.  The  commissioners  made 
their  speeches  on  17th  January,  1861,  and  the  conven- 
tion adjourned.  On  the  18th,  next  day,  the  following 
resolution  was  offered  by  Hon.  E.  A.  Nisbet:  "That  it 
is  the  opinion  of  this  convention  it  is  the  right  and 
duty  of  Georgia  to  secede  from  the  present  Union,  and 
to  co-operate  with  such  of  the  other  States  as  have  or 
shall  do  the  same,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  South- 
ern Confederacy,  upon  the  oasis  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  and  that  a  committee  be  appoint- 
ed by  the  chair  to  report  an  ordinance  to  assert  the 
right  and  fulfill  the  obligation  of  the  State  of  Georgia 
to  secede  from  the  Union." 

Remember  that  the  convention  had  not  cast  a  vote  or 
debated  a  single  question  and  this  hasty  movement 
was  rushed  upon  it.  Ex-Gov.  Herschel  V.  Johnson, 
late  candidate  for  vice-president  on  the  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  ticket,  offered  a  substitute.  "The  State  of 
Georgia  is  attached  to  the  Union  and  desires  to  pre- 
serve it  if  it  can  be  done  consistent  with  her  rights  and 
safety,  but  existing  circumstances  admonish  her  of 
danger;  that  danger  arises  from  the  assaults  that  are 
made  upon  the  institution  of  domestic  slavery  and  is 
common  to  all  the  Southern  States,  etc.,  etc." 

First,  Be  it  ordained  by  the  State  of  Georgia  in 
sovereign  convention  assembled,  that  Delaware,  Mary- 
land, Virginia,  Kentucky,  North  Carolina,  Louisiana, 
Texas,  Arkansas,  Tennessee  and  Missouri  be  aud  are 
hereby  invited  respectively  to  meet  with  this  state  by 
delegates  in  a  Congress  at  Atlanta,  Ga.,  on  16th  of 
February,  1861,  to  take  into  consideration  the  whole 
subject  of  their  relations  to  the  Federal  Government, 
and  to  devise  such  a  course  of  action  as  their  interest, 

81 


equality  and  safety  may  require."  Section  2nd  in- 
vited the  already  seceded  states  to  send  commissioners 
to  said  congress.  Section  3rd,  "That  inasmuch  as 
Georgia  is  resolved  not  to  abide  permanently  in  the 
Union  without  satisfactory  guarantees  of  future  se- 
curity the  following  propositions  are  respectfully 
suggested  as  the  substance  of  what  she  regards  indis- 
pensable amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  Unit- 
ed States : 

1st.  Congress  shall  have  no  power  to  abolish  or  pro- 
hibit slavery  in  the  territories  or  any  place  under  their 
jurisdiction.  2nd.  Each  state  shall  be  bound  to  sur- 
render fugitive  slaves,  etc.  The  United  States  to  pay 
the  owner  the  value  of  such  slave,  the  county  in  which 
such  enticement  shall  occur  to  be  liable  to  United 
States  for  amount  to  be  recovered  in  Federal  Courts. 
3rd.  To  be  a  penal  offense  to  rescue  or  entice  or  en- 
courage any  fugitive  slave  or  to  assist,  etc.,  etc.  4th. 
Whatever  is  recognized  as  property  in  the  United 
States  shall  be  held  to  be  property  in  the  Territories, 
etc. 

Section  5.  New  states  to  be  admitted  into  the 
Union  with  or  without  slavery  by  the  people  at  the 
time  of  admission.  6th  Congress  to  have  no  power  to 
prohibit  or  interfere  with  slave  trade  between  the 
states,  nor  prohibit  citizens  of  United  States  from 
carrying  slaves  passing  through  or  sojourning  in 
District  of  Columbia,  with  prompt  punishment  of  all 
persons  who  may  interfere.  7th.  No  state  to  pass  any 
law  to  prohibit  owners  from  carrying  slaves  and  re- 
turning with  them  throughout  the  Union.  8th.  Obli- 
gation to  surrender  fugitive  slaves  or  fugitives 
charged  with  offenses  connected  with  or  committed 
against  slavery  or  slave  property  with  agreement  that 
whatever  is  criminal  in  one  state  will  be  deemed  crim- 
inal in  all  states.  9th.  No  person  of  African  descent 
shall  be  permitted  to  vote  for  Federal  officers  nor  to 
hold  any  office  or  appointment  under  government  of 
the  United  States." 

Such  were  the  demands  to  be  made  on  the  Federal 
Union  or  Georgia  would  secede.  There  was  "elabor- 
ate discussion"  that  day  until  the  previous  question 

82 


was  called,  and  Mr.  Johnson's  substitute  was  set  aside 
and  a  direct  vote  on  Mr.  Nesbit's  resolution  was  called 
for,  yea  and  nay  vote.     160  yeas,  130  nays. 

The  convention  organized  on  January  16,  heard 
commissioners  on  17th  and  had  virtually  seceded  Geor- 
gia out  of  the  Union  on  18th.    Alarming  haste ! ! 

When  the  ordinance  was  put  on  its  passage,  Mr. 
Hill,  of  Trout,  moved  to  give  attention  to  Mr.  John- 
son's resolution  here  copied.  This  was  defeated,  yeas 
133,  nays  164. 

Then  the  ordinance  itself  was  voted  on.  Yeas  208, 
nays  89,  January  19,  1861. 

The  balance  of  the  secession  work  went  along  with  a 
cut  and  dried  program  of  the  first  working  day.  The 
majority  was  with  the  "fire-eaters"  and  they  over- 
rode the  large  minority.  There  were  tens  of  thousands 
of  Union-loving  people  in  Georgia,  but  they  had  no 
chance  in  that  convention.  They  were  forced  into  a 
four-year  bloody  war  to  defend  the  institution  of  do- 
mestic slavery,  and  they  lost  their  slaves,  their  real 
estate  and  personal  property,  lost  their  surplus  money 
and  lost  their  lives  in  many  cases.  Excepting  those 
who  retained  their  lands  by  self  denial  and  self-sacri- 
fice, this  section  was  swept  bare  by  war  destruction. 

In  a  crowded  parlor  in  Washington  City,  during 
the  late  Confederate  Reunion,  June,  1917,  I  heard  a 
Confederate  (wearing  a  handsome  uniform  with  a 
number  of  decorations  on  his  breast,  and  apparently 
well-to-do  in  this  world's  goods),  expatiating  on  the 
slavery  question,  insisting  that  the  Bible  approved  it, 
and  God  had  ordained  it,  and  the  negro  belonged  no- 
where save  in  slavery  and  the  world  would  not  be  set 
aright  until  the  old  order  was  restored.  Fifty-two 
years  had  come  and  gone,  and  domestic  slavery  had 
been  abolished  on  both  hemispheres,  fully  half  a  cen- 
tury and  this  ancient  warrior  was  still  stirring  the 
embers  of  sectional  fury  and  still  spluttering  about 
the  rights  of  Southern  slave  owners. 

All  we  individually  owned  disappeared,  except  the 
farm  land,  and  in  my  old  age,  I  am  pondering  this 
question,  why  did  not  the  South  compromise  by  selling 
their  slaves  or  offering  to  take  a  price,  and  put  it  up  to 

83 


those  who  were  afraid  of  war  ?  Was  slave  ownership 
ever  worth  the  sacrifice  of  blood  and  treasure  that  re- 
sulted from  that  secession  ordinance?  Was  Mr.  Till- 
man correct  in  saying  that  there  was  no  other  way  to 
remove  the  curse,  and  the  South  did  penance  with  a 
four-years  bloody  war  ?  To  clear  his  words  of  all  am- 
biguity, did  the  Lord  Almighty  punish  the  slave  own- 
ers by  sending  on  them  the  awful  struggle  that  ended 
in  complete  destruction  of  the  South  and  the  sacrifice 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives  ?  Any  reader  of  his- 
tory will  agree  with  me  that  the  negro  question  is  not 
half  settled.  Our  fifty  years  of  hard  experience  since 
the  Civil  War  demonstrates  one  fact  only,  that  the 
negro  is  in  the  United  States  to  stay  and  according  as 
he  is  dealt  with,  depends  our  own  peace  or  disaster  in 
his  association  with  the  whites. 

There  is  a  well-authenticated  story  exploited  in 
the  newspapers  of  the  present  year,  1917,  that  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  in  February,  1865,  met  the  Confederate 
commissioners  at  the  Hampton  Roads  conference  and 
made  some  sort  of  advances,  looking  towards  a  cessa- 
tion of  hostilities  and  other  suggestions  looking  to- 
wards some  reasonable  remuneration  for  slave  prop- 
erty. This  is  affirmed  by  several  reliable  persons,  who 
declare  that  Hon.  A.  H.  Stephens  made  such  state- 
ments and  he  was  the  vice  president  of  the  ill-fated 
Confederacy  at  the  time.  Some  of  these  declarations 
are  in  the  shape  of  affidavits.  On  the  other  side  sev- 
eral noted  persons  declare  there  was  nothing  of  the 
kind  that  occurred,  that  it  was  a  fake  story.  I  have 
understood  that  the  Confederate  Veterans  organiza- 
tion proposes  to  explore  into  this  matter  and  give  the 
result  at  the  reunion  in  Tulsa,  Oklahoma,  in  1918. 

Hon.  Henry  Watterson,  of  Kentucky,  declares  he 
had  the  story  at  first  hand  from  Mr.  Stephens.  Hon. 
Julian  Carr,  of  North  Carolina,  denies  that  any  such 
story  can  or  will  be  affirmed.  The  meeting  between 
President  Lincoln  and  Vice-President  Stephens  did 
take  place  in  Hampton  Roads,  February  3,  1865.  Mr. 
Stephens  was  accompanied  by  Confederate  Secretary 
of  War,  formerly  Judge  Campbell,  of  the  Federal  Su- 

84 


preme  Court,  and  Hon.  R.  M.  L.  Hunter,  Confederate 
Senator  of  Virginia. 

Secretary  of  State  W.  H.  Seward  was  the  Federal 
Commissioner,  and  so  far  as  known  Mr.  Lincoln's 
presence  was  not  expected.  What  he  said  on  any  of 
these  matters  was  addressed  privately  to  Mr.  Stephens. 

There  was  lack  of  harmony  between  the  president 
and  vice-president  of  the  Confederacy.  I  am  con- 
vinced that  Mr.  Stephens  entertained  different  views 
from  Mr.  Davis,  especially  in  the  latest  months  of  the 
war  struggle.  Mr.  Stephens  is  recorded  as  being  in 
Crawfordville  on  the  20th  of  February,  1865,  and  he 
evidently  understood  that  the  government  at  Rich- 
mond was  on  its  last  legs.  The  surrender  at  Appo- 
mattox was  only  two  months  off  when  the  meeting  at 
Hampton  Roads  took  place.  The  story  goes  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  said  if  he  might  write  Union  on  the  top  of 
the  page,  and  the  Confederates  would  lay  down  arms 
they  might  write  anything  else  below  and  he  would 
sign  it.  The  Confederate  commissioners  conferred 
and  reported  they  must  only  ask  for  their  independ- 
ence. So  the  last  and  final  chance  to  get  some  sort  of 
a  compromise  went  glimmering,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's 
overture  did  no  good  and  every  life  that  was  shot  out 
afterwards  was  sacrificed.  Indeed  as  the  war  business 
appealed  to  me  there  was  nothing  but  loss  and  sacri- 
fice after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg.  Going  into  war  as 
we  did  to  preserve  the  institution  of  domestic  slavery, 
we  risked  everything  and  lost  everything  by  the  ven- 
ture, and  we  also  lost  the  sympathy  of  the  outside 
world  because  of  our  slavery  contention. 

I  remember  the  visit  President  Davis  made  to  Ma- 
con in  February,  1865.  My  husband  went  to  the  city 
to  hear  the  speech.  We  were  poor  refugees,  only  four 
miles  distant.  I  watched  and  waited  for  his  return, 
for  my  heart  was  heavy  and  the  times  ominous.  I 
saw  little  hopefulness  in  his  face.  "The  President 
told  us  we  were  doing  well  and  there  was  no  doubt  as 
to  our  final  success."  It  was  the  old,  old  story,  and 
Sherman  had  already  marched  to  the  sea  and  Georgia 
was  prostrate.  Despite  the  rigid,  drastic  conscription 
which  called  all  men  from  sixteen  to  sixty,  despoiling 

85 


the  cradle  and  the  grave.  Sherman  went  from  At- 
lanta to  Savannah  practically  unopposed.  I  was  call- 
ed to  see  my  sick  mother  in  Crawfordville,  Ga.,  just 
before  Sherman  threatened  Macon.  We  were  cut  off 
in  returning  by  the  burning  of  the  railroad  bridge 
over  the  Oconee  river.  We  were  only  ten  miles  from 
the  conflagration,  and  there  was  nothing  to  be  done 
but  to  go  back  either  to  Crawfordville,  or  try  to  make 
a  long  circuit  by  Savannah,  then  to  Albany,  and  then 
northward.  We  essayed  the  latter  route.  On  that 
trip  we  passed  car-loads  of  Andersonville  prisoners 
being  removed  to  another  camp  as  it  was  expected  that 
Sherman  would  strike  for  Andersonville.  The  night 
was  gloomy  and  the  torch  fires  made  a  wierd  scene  as 
our  train  rolled  along  beside  passing  flat  cars  on  which 
those  Federal  prisoners  were  guarded,  with  torch 
lights  illuminating  the  faces  of  those  ragged,  smoke- 
begrimed,  haggard  and  miserably  filthy  men.  I  had  a 
glimpse  of  war  conditions  that  was  new  to  me.  Prison 
treatment  of  such  men  has  always  been  a  disgrace  to 
Christianity  and  civilization.  I  had  read  of  Camp 
Chase  and  Johnson's  Island  and  been  angered  at  the 
treatment  accorded  to  our  Confederate  prisoners,  but 
that  sight  of  train-loads  of  Federal  prisoners  on  that 
wild  night  in  Southern  Georgia,  when  I  could  look 
into  their  faces  within  a  few  feet  of  the  train  I  be- 
came an  eyewitness  to  their  enforced  degradation,  filth 
and  utter  destitution  and  the  sight  never  could  be  for- 
gotten. Nor  can  I  forget  seeing  on  a  depot  platform 
a  dead  negro  man  who  had  said  something  offensive  to 
an  Andersonville  guard  and  he  had  been  shot  a  few 
minutes  before  our  train  pulled  in.  The  quivers  of 
dying  flesh  had  hardly  subsided  in  his  stalwart  body 
as  we  rolled  away. 

There  never  was  a  more  loyal  woman  in  the  South 
after  we  were  forced  by  our  political  leaders  to  go  to 
battle  to  defend  our  rights  in  ownership  of  African 
slaves,  but  they  called  it  "State's  Rights,"  and  all  I 
owned  was  invested  in  slaves  and  my  people  were  loy- 
al and  I  stood  by  them  to  the  end.  Like  General  Lee, 
I  could  not  fight  against  my  kindred  in  a  struggle  that 
meant  life  or  death  to  them.    Nevertheless  I  am  now 


too  near  to  the  border  land  of  eternity  to  withhold 
my  matured  conscientious  and  honest  opinion.  If 
there  had  been  no  slaves  there  would  have  been  no 
war.  To  fight  for  the  perpetuation  of  domestic  slav- 
ery was  a  mistake.  The  time  had  come  in  the  United 
States  to  wipe  out  this  evil.  The  South  had  to  suffer, 
and  even  when  our  preachers  were  leading  in  prayer 
for  victory,  during  the  war,  and  black-robed  mothers 
and  wives  were  weeping  for  their  dead  ones,  who  per- 
ished on  the  field  of  battle,  I  had  questions  in  my  own 
mind  as  to  what  would  be  the  end  of  it. 

We  had  a  Methodist  camp  ground  on  our  plantation 
in  1860.  Immense  crowds  were  in  attendance  on  Sun- 
day exercises,  among  them  the  Governor  of  the  State. 
The  crowd  was  so  great  I  could  not  leave  our  tent  as 
we  were  cooking  and  feeding  people  the  most  of  the 
day.  On  Sunday  night,  while  the  mourner's  bench 
was  crowded  and  people  shouting  down  in  the  audi- 
torium, there  were  neighbors  and  friends  inside  our 
tent  armed  to  the  teeth  waiting  for  midnight  to  go  out 
quietly  to  suppress  a  ' '  rising ' '  that  had  been  reported 
to  them  late  in  the  afternoon.  The  dread  of  negro 
insurrection  and  social  equality  with  negroes  at  the 
ballot  box  held  the  Southern  whites  together  in  war 
or  peace.  That  "rising"  was  a  false  alarm  but  the 
terror  of  these  risings  made  Southern  fathers  and  hus- 
bands desperate  as  to  remedies.  It  is  the  secret  of 
lynching  instead  of  a  legal  remedy.  It  was  "born  in 
the  blood  and  bred  in  the  bone,"  and  a  resultant  of 
domestic  slavery  in  the  Southern  States.  It  was  at 
the  bottom  of  the  East  St.  Louis  riots.  It  is  working 
like  leaven  in  a  thousand  localities  where  unsuspecting 
people  live  today.  Therefore  I  affirm  that  the  negro 
question  is  unsettled  and  the  end  is  still  out  of  sight. 
This  irritating  side  of  the  slavery  issue  is  still  rampant 
throughout  Georgia,  and  spreading  in  north  and  west. 

I  heard  the  cannon  in  Rome,  Georgia,  twenty-five 
miles  away,  when  Georgia  seceded.  I  was  only  three 
miles  distant  from  the  railroad  the  night  Mr.  Jefferson 
Davis  passed  through  to  Montgomery,  Ala.,  to  be  made 
President  of  the  Confederacy.  If  it  had  been  in  day 
time  I  should  have  seen  him.     I  saw  Georgia  troops 

87 


reviewed  by  the  Governor  at  "Big  Shanty"  when  they 
were  drilling  for  the  last  time  before  leaving  for  Vir- 
ginia. The  battle  of  Manassas  was  going  on  when  they 
passed  through  our  town  on  July  21,  1861.  The  wires 
were  working  telling  about  the  battle  and  the  women 
were  sobbing  with  arms  about  the  necks  of  soldier  boys 
who  were  bidding  them  a  final  good-bye  at  the  depot. 
The  only  brother  I  had  was  a  cadet  at  Marietta  Mili- 
tary Institute  and  he  volunteered  with  the  Gate  City 
Guards  of  Atlanta  sometime  before  he  was  sixteen. 
That  boy — beardless,  slender,  tenderly  raised,  imma- 
ture, a  child  in  years,  left  his  mother  in  gleeful  de- 
light, anxious  to  go,  craving  excitement,  and  knowing 
nothing  whatever  about  camp  life  or  the  dangers  that 
were  in  front  of  him.  His  mother's  face  was  quiver- 
ing with  suffering  and  anxiety,  a  part  of  her  very  life 
was  carried  along  with  that  heedless  youth,  and  her 
anxiety  never  lessened  until  her  son  surrendered  with 
General  Forrest,  at  LaGrange,  at  the  close  of  the  war. 

The  most  serious  thing  about  war  is  the  slaughter 
of  boys.  It  is  the  boys  of  the  country  who  must  face 
the  enemy.  They  lose  education.  They  risk  the  vices 
of  camp  life,  they  encounter  the  diseases  that  swoop 
down  on  them,  and  generally  bring  home  enough  of 
the  evils  to  wreck  physical  and  moral  health  for  all 
time.  They  are  the  "seed  corn"  of  any  nation  and 
the  crop  fails.  The  political  leaders  force  a  country 
into  bloody  strife  and  three-fourths  of  the  army  are 
young  men  and  boys  who  had  absolutely  nothing  to  do 
with  bringing  it  on,  without  any  real  knowledge  of  the 
evils  resented  or  principles  fought  for. 

If  our  political  leaders  in  January,  1861,  had  pla- 
carded the  walls  in  Milledgeville  with  our  intention  to 
fight  for  the  perpetuation  of  negro  slavery  the  con- 
vention would  have  stepped  backward,  but  to  show 
the  exceeding  haste  and  folly  of  our  times  the  mem- 
bers of  the  secession  convention,  as  before  noted, 
placed  no  other  grievance  or  policy  of  defense  on  their 
official  minutes. 

There  was  scarcely  a  week  of  war  time  that  we  did 
not  feed  soldiers  going  or  coming.  I  knitted  socks, 
gloves  and  sleeping  caps  continuously.    We  had  woun- 


ded  soldiers  to  stay  with  us,  we  carried  food  to  trains, 
when  wounded  soldiers  were  being  transported  to 
points  lower  down.  For  a  number  of  days  after  the 
bloody  battle  of  Chickamauga  the  trains  were  packed 
with  wounded,  a  number  dying  on  the  way.  We  made 
a  daily  business  of  cooking  and  carrying  baskets  of 
good  food  to  help  them  along.  Some  of  the  most  trag- 
ic episodes  of  my  life  happened  in  trying  to  relieve 
the  distress  of  the  time.  It  would  take  a  larger  book 
than  this  to  set  them  down  in  detail. 

In  the  spring  of  1864  it  was  evident  that  Cherokee 
Georgia  would  be  overrun  by  the  Federal  army.  The 
Confederate  troops  were  at  Dalton,  and  Gen.  Sher- 
man was  preparing  to  leave  Chattanooga.  We  de- 
cided to  refugee  southward,  secured  an  old  farm  four- 
miles  from  Macon  to  make  a  crop  and  left  our  home 
with  fifteen  colored  slaves  in  charge.  I  never  saw  the 
home  any  more  until  August,  1865.  When  I  reached 
the  gate  I  picked  up  the  springs  that  had  been  a  part 
of  my  dead  child's  fine  baby  carriage,  also  the  arm 
of  a  large  parlor  mahogany  chair  that  had  been  also 
burned.  Desolation  and  destruction  everywhere,  bit- 
ter, grinding  poverty — slaves  all  gone,  money  also. 
We  certainly  paid  the  price  while  we  were  in  refugee 
condition.  General  Storeman  made  his  raid  on  Ma- 
con, expecting  to  reach  Andersonville  where  the  Fed- 
eral prisoners  were  located.  We  fell  in  his  line  of  ap- 
proach. They  tethered  their  horses  in  our  lots  after 
midnight.  When  day  light  came  the  face  of  the  earth 
was  covered  with  "blue  coats"  mounted  cavalry. 
They  did  not  capture  Macon  but  our  place  was  inside 
their  lines  all  day  and  succeeding  night.  They  took 
all  they  cared  to  have  and  trampled  down  crops  be- 
fore they  slipped  away.  They  surrendered  eight  or 
ten  miles  from  us  to  General  Iverson. 

Sherman's  army  and  Wheeler's  cavalry  overran  us 
in  the  month  of  November,  1864.  When  it  came  to  for- 
aging one  side  was  nearly  as  bad  as  the  other.  Sher- 
man had  so  little  opposition  that  he  chose  his  own  di- 
rect route  to  Savannah.  The  Confederacy  was  cut  in 
two  and  a  line  of  lone  chimneys  marked  the  burned 
path  he  made  from    Atlanta  to  the  sea.    It  was  very 

89 


astounding  to  remember  all  these  reverses  and  yet  we 
were  constantly  told  we  would  certainly  succeed,  and 
we  clutched  at  every  item  of  news  that  indicated  a 
success.  Our  politicians  still  were  speechifying.  Hon. 
Linton  Stephens  made  an  address  in  Macon  in  which 
were  criticisms  of  the  administration  on  the  futility 
and  fatality  of  conscript  legislation  as  it  was  worked 
out  in  the  Southern  army. 

With  drastic  regulations  as  to  conscription,  and 
every  male  from  sixteen  to  sixty  liable  to  service,  the 
armies  dwindled  away.  Yet  there  were  men  in  plen- 
ty— officials  galore,  and  exempts  in  abundance. 

I  cannot  go  into  minor  details  but  must  not  fail  to 
note  the  surrender  of  Macon,  which  completed  the  sur- 
render of  the  sovereign  state  of  Georgia,  and  which 
occurred  a  very  few  days  or  hours  before  Appomattox, 
early  in  April,  1865. 

There  was  at  least  one  newspaper  still  printed  in 
Macon  and  we  had  to  go  there  for  news  and  to  mail 
our  letters.  Having  heard  nothing  but  rumors  for 
several  days,  I  decided  to  ride  horseback  and  find  out 
if  General  Wilson  was  really  advancing  on  Macon.  I 
hitched  the  horse  in  East  Macon,  walked  across  Cen- 
tral R.  R.  bridge  (city  bridge  having  been  burned), 
and  made  my  way  to  Burke's  book  store  on  Mulberry 
street.  Mr.  Burke  had  formerly  lived  in  Cass  County 
(We  were  angry  with  General  Cass  and  renamed  it 
Bartow,  after  General  Francis  Bartow  was  killed  at 
first  Manasses  battle)  and  was  our  friend.  As  I  ap- 
proached the  store  door,  nearly  level  with  the  street, 
I  saw  a  gentleman  sitting  close  by  outside  in  a  split- 
bottomed  chair.  His  face  seemed  familiar  but  I  was 
not  certain,  so  I  requested  Mr.  Burke  to  return  to  the 
door  with  me  and  tell  me  about  him.  He  had  on  plain 
clothes,  plain  hat,  etc.  Said  Mr.  Burke,  "that  is  Ma- 
jor-General  Howell  Cobb,  commander-in-chief  of  the 
military  forces  of  the  State  of  Georgia."  He  pro- 
ceeded to  tell  me  that  whiskey  barrels  had  been  broken 
in  (I  could  smell  it  in  the  gutters)  and  a  squad  of 
Macon  citizens  had  gone  out  to  meet  the  victorious 
General  Wilson  who  was  reported  twenty  miles  away 
early  that  morning,  with  rapid  moving  cavalry  and  at- 

90 


tended  by  hundreds  of  negroes,  who  had  been  gather- 
ing behind  him  since  he  had  occupied  Columbus.  The 
citizens  expected  the  worst  and  that  squad  of  citizens 
were  asking  for  protection  from  loot,  rapine  and  the 
torch.  Mr.  Burke  advised  me  to  get  back  to  my  ref- 
uge shack  without  delay,  which  advice  I  followed  and 
in  haste.  I  still  wonder  that  I  had  the  temerity  to  un- 
dertake that  lonely  ride.  It  was  a  deserted  road, 
much  of  it  still  in  forest  growth,  and  the  poor  little 
horse  was  slow.  As  I  went  along,  grieved  and  de- 
pressed by  our  condition,  I  remembered  that  Major 
General  Howell  Cobb  had  been  one  of  the  most  active 
fire-eaters  in  the  secession  convention,  one  of  the  many 
who  could  not  wait  even  a  few  days  to  discuss  the  risks 
and  dangers  which  everybody  knew  would  assail  us. 

Not  a  corporal's  guard  did  he  bring  forward  in  Ma- 
con to  meet  the  advancing  foe ;  and  yet  as  commander- 
in-chief  of  all  of  Georgia  military  forces  he  could  have 
called  to  the  colors  every  boy  and  man  from  sixteen 
to  sixty  in  that  section  by  conscription.  (From  what 
I  then  saw  I  was  strenuously  opposed  to  conscription 
for  Georgia  boys  in  1917.  I  had  no  objection  to  allow- 
ing volunteers  to  go  to  France  or  to  serve  in  airplanes 
if  they  volunteered  for  such  service,  but  I  did  my  little 
best  to  convince  Georgia  readers  that  it  would  not  do 
to  force  our  soldiers  into  airships  or  to  send  them 
across  the  Atlantic  ocean  to  dictate  to  foreign  govern- 
ments or  fight  for  kings  or  queens  or  command  the 
sort  of  rulers  they  should  have  in  the  future.)  The 
army  of  General  Wilson  reached  Macon  in  the  after- 
noon and  poor  old  Georgia  was  done  for.  Although 
the  state  had  sent  many  thousands  to  army  service  and 
had  borne  with  patience  the  failures,  mistakes  and  de- 
feats that  had  been  forced  on  her  by  lack  of  statesman- 
ship, yet  in  the  hour  of  her  deepest  humiliation  the 
commander-in-chief  of  Georgia's  reserves  had  nothing, 
not  a  man  to  offer  to  stand  between  her  innocent  wo- 
men and  what  an  invading  army  might  inflict  upon 
them.  The  issue  of  slavery  became  too  frail  a  support 
in  that  gloomy  period  of  the  South 's  history  for  pro- 
tection, and  I  still  wonder  that  we  still  had  no  influen- 

91 


tial  statesmen  who  might  have  grasped  the  facts  and 
stood  for  something  else  besides  war,  where  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  white  men  were  forced  by  conscription 
into  bloody  combat  to  defend  that  slavery  contention. 
After  Macon  surrendered  we  also  understood  that  the 
Confederacy  had  collapsed.  The  final  surrender  at 
Appomattox  fell  on  dull  ears.  The  capture  of  Presi- 
dent Jefferson  Davis  and  the  bringing  of  himself  and 
escort  to  Macon  made  a  ripple  of  excitement  for  a  few 
days,  but  we  realized  that  the  game  had  been  fully 
played  and  all  was  lost.  Billions  of  values  disap- 
peared and  nobody  but  thrifty  speculators  had  a  dol- 
lar to  spend  or  to  begin  the  struggle  again  or  start  in 
business  with  bitter  poverty  and  starvation  in  front 
of  them. 

"We  must  also  chronicle  the  lack  of  statesmanship  af- 
ter the  Southern  politicians  were  convinced  that  they 
had  unwisely  rushed  Georgia  into  secession.  For 
more  than  fifty  years  this  subject  has  been  discussed 
in  Congress,  on  the  stump  and  by  churchmen,  and 
newspapers.  It  filled  congress  with  small  men,  of  the 
demagogue  variety,  both  North  and  South.  It  has  re- 
tarded the  South 's  progress  after  the  slavery  issue  was 
settled  so  far  as  slave  ownership  was  concerned.  It 
has  been  stirred  and  exploited  in  every  national  elec- 
tion. If  the  ownership  of  slaves  was  a  curse  to  the 
South,  according  to  Mr.  Tillman,  the  enmities  and  in- 
justices of  Civil  War  hatreds,  along  with  sectional 
animosity  and  race  evils,  have  been  a  curse  to  the  en- 
tire Union.  And  the  end  is  not  yet.  As  I  write  these 
lines  there  is  bloody  race  conflict  in  Pennsylvania.  It 
promises  to  be  a  lively  issue  in  the  progress  of  the 
present  war  as  an  internal  disturbance  from  Maine  to 
California,  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf.  The  children 
of  the  Southern  States  are  being  unwisely  taught  by 
Southern  agitators,  women  as  well  as  men,  that  the 
political  issues  of  the  Civil  War  are  still  germane  and 
worthy  of  adoration.  They  are  instructed  to  call  the 
Lost  Cause  a  glorious  cause.  They  resent  any  change 
in  public  opinion,  because  the  change  would  mean 
their  own  retiracy  to  back  seats  in  politics  and  from 
public  attention.     They  are  barnacles  on  the  ship  of 

b2 


state,  and  they  have  inoculated  hatred  to  ' '  D — n  Yan- 
kees," as  a  creed  to  be  eulogized  and  fostered.  The 
curse  of  slavery  is  still  following  hard  upon  the  foot- 
steps of  our  nation's  progress  because  of  hybrid  races 
of  mulatto  and  mestizo  varieties.  Every  nation  that 
has  a  recorded  history  went  to  decay  when  honorable 
marriage  was  trampled  upon  and  the  South  went  to 
defeat  because  of  violations  of  the  moral  law.  As  a 
rule,  slave  owners  were  careful  of  the  health  of  their 
slaves.  "The  profit  in  it,"  made  them  careful.  There 
were  bad  masters,  many  of  them,  but  the  increase  of 
slave  property  before  the  Civil  War  attests  the  good 
feeding  and  housing  of  the  slaves.  The  crime  that 
made  slavery  a  curse,  lies  in  the  fact  that  unbridled 
lust  placed  the  children  of  bad  white  men  in  slave 
pens,  on  auction  blocks,  and  no  regard  was  shown  to 
parentage  or  parental  responsibility  in  such  matters. 
I  remember  well  a  noted  home  in  Middle  Georgia 
where  a  rich  man  lived  in  open  alliance  with  a  colored 
woman  and  where  Governors  and  Congressmen  were 
often  invited  to  dine  and  where  they  were  glad  to  go. 
These  visitors  understood  conditions  in  the  Dickson 
home.  They  knew  there  were  children  there  born  of  a 
slave  mother  and  the  law  of  Georgia  forbade  such  mis- 
cegenation. These  facts  are  of  record  because  of  the 
contest  over  the  valuable  Dickson  estate  in  the  courts 
of  Georgia  and  the  colored  children  were  given  the 
money  because  the  owner  acknowledged  the  progeny 
in  his  will.  There  were  other  men  of  distinction  in 
Georgia  who  also  defied  the  marriage  law  of  the  state 
by  keeping  up  two  households  on  the  same  plantation, 
one  white  and  the  other  colored,  and  both  women  were 
afraid  to  make  public  outcry. 

Therein  lay  the  curse  of  slavery. 

It  is  continually  urged  that  "Southern  civil  war 
soldiers  were  not  thinking  of  their  slaves  because  few 
of  them  had  any."  It  is  a  serious  arraignment,  be- 
cause those  who  had  no  slaves  were  finally  forced  to 
go,  because  of  rigid  conscription  laws,  and  very  few 
of  the  large  landowners  who  urged  on  the  war  were 
killed  on  the  battle  fields.  They  were  active  as  a  rule 
in  legislation  passed  by  the  secession  convention,  and 

93 


as  herein  shown  devoted  to  slaves  and  slavery  and  its 
perpetuation  and  protection. 

On  page  293  of  Journal  of  Georgia  Secession  Con- 
vention, you  will  find  the  following  words :  ' '  The 
General  Assembly  (of  Georgia)  shall  have  no  power 
to  pass  laws  for  the  emancipation  of  slaves."  These 
were  very  superfluous  words.  Those  who  owned  them 
wanted  more  and  those  who  did  not  own  them  were 
looking  forward  to  the  time  when  they  hoped  to  own 
them.  This  secession  convention  had  a  great  deal  to 
say  of  "slave-holding  states"  and  while  no  general 
assembly  was  allowed  to  pass  laws  emancipating  slaves 
no  citizen  might  forbid  or  interfere  with  the  bringing 
in  of  slaves.  One  of  the  inducements  offered  to  Mary- 
land and  Delaware  was  worded  thus :  "Go  on  and  raise 
your  own  labor."  This  slave-owning  Confederacy 
was  to  be  a  close  corporation,  only  slave-owning  states 
were  to  be  admitted  and  by  raising  their  own  labor 
there  was  nothing  to  hinder  in  commercial  enterprises 
because  of  this  monopoly  of  slave  labor. 

"The  profit  in  it"  made  these  slave-holding  states 
arrogant,  also  very  angry.  Abolitionists  were  likewise 
politically  active.  When  the  heat  of  the  argument  be- 
came consuming,  there  was  nothing  left  but  the  arbi- 
trament of  the  sword.  Thus  the  South  lost  the  slaves, 
and  the  profit  in  them.  Common  sense  should  have 
dictated  a  compromise.  There  was  apparent  lack  of 
statesmanship. 

I  am  impressed  that  the  slavery  advocates  expected 
to  retire  without  bloodshed.  If  they  had  been  wiser 
compromise  offers  would  have  been  in  evidence. 
Nothing  but  the  expectation  of  a  peaceful  separation 
will  explain  the  hasty  methods  used  by  the  politicians 
of  the  early  60s.    And  the  end  is  still  in  abeyance. 


94 


CHAPTER  II. 


SOUTHERN  WOMEN  IN  THE  CIVIL  WAR. 


[Synopsis  of  an  address  delivered  in  Augusta,  Ga.,  on  invita- 
tion of  United  Daughters  of  Confederacy  in  year  1900.] 
' '  The  pleasing  introduction  to  which  I  have  listened 
this  evening  was  delightful  to  me,  and  will  be  long  re- 
membered. To  one  like  myself,  going  down  the  sun- 
set slope  of  life,  such  kind  words  are  like  cooling 
drinks  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  and  will  remain  with 
me  to  keep  this  visit  in  sweet  remembrance. 

"I  would  be  glad  if  I  had  the  time  to  tell  you  what 
I  have  gathered  concerning  Georgia  women  in  Revolu- 
tionary periods.  I  could  present  you  with  some  of 
our  Colonial  women  who  were  noble  patriots.  I  am 
tempted  to  recite  what  I  know  from  early  Georgia 
history  of  Mary  Musgrove,  known  in  General  Ogle- 
thorpe's time  as  the  Empress  of  the  Creek  Nation. 
Her  father  had  two  children,  a  son  and  daughter, 
and  he  made  choice  of  the  latter  as  the  reigning  sov- 
ereign of  the  then  powerful  Creek  Indians. 

"She  had  frequent  dealings  with  General  Ogle- 
thorpe as  a  ruling  chieftainess.  She  drew  a  pension 
of  $500  from,  the  British  Government  for  many  years 
before  her  death.  In  a  settlement  with  the  whites  she 
was  allowed  three  Islands  on  the  seacoast  of  Georgia, 
two  of  which  her  last  husband  sold  for  $10,000  in  solid 
cash.  She  was  given  at  another  time  $3,000  in  gold. 
Mary  died  on  St.  Catherine's  Island  and  her  dwelling 
was  standing  as  late  as  1820.  Mary's  weak  point  was 
matrimony.  Every  venture  she  made  was  only  fairly 
good,  then  bad  and  then  worse.  Her  latest  spouse 
was  an  Episcopal  clergyman  who  came  out  with  Gen- 
eral Oglethorpe  and  who  urged  Mary  to  press  her 
claims  as  an  Indian  Empress  to  the  limit.  When  Mary 
was  sober  she  refused  to  follow  the  preacher.     When 

95 


she  was  full  of  rum  she  made  a  fool  of  herself  as 
generally  happens. 

Nevertheless  there  was  in  her  the  making  of  a  great 
woman.  She  is  the  most  prominent  figure  in  General 
Oglethorpe's  time,  save  this  great  English  lord  who 
first  settled  in  Georgia. 

I  might  tell  you  a  good  deal  about  Nancy  Hart,  the 
revolutionary  patriot,  in  the  early  settling  of  Eastern 
Georgia.  She  made  her  mark  in  brave,  bold,  strong 
lines.  She  was  a  terror  to  the  Tory  factions  of  that 
stormy  time.  One  biographer  says  Nancy  was  cross- 
eyed and  loved  her  dram.  She  could  be  all  that  is 
charged  against  her,  and  still  be  superior  to  her  ill- 
natured  biographer,  who  was  doubtless  a  woman  hater. 
Nancy  could  handle  a  gun  with  the  best  marksmen 
of  her  time.  She  did  defend  a  fort  filled  with  wo- 
men and  children  while  the  men  of  the  neighborhood 
were  chasing  Indians  and  catching  up  with  Tories. 
She  loaded  the  cannon  in  the  fort  and  when  she  dis- 
covered a  sorry  fellow  in  hiding  she  brought  him  out 
and  put  him  behind  the  cannon  to  obey  orders  or  she 
would  give  him  what  he  deserved  as  a  slacker. 

One  critic  says:  "Nancy  was  a  honey  of  a  patriot, 
but  a  d — 1  of  a  wife."  Nevertheless  Nancy  raised 
a  large  family  of  children  and  only  moved  westward 
when  game  became  scarce  in  the  rich  bottom  lands  of 
the  Savannah  river. 

Nancy  enjoys  the  very  notable  distinction  of  being 
the  only  Georgia  woman  who  has  had  a  county  in 
Georgia  named  after  her.  True  it  is,  she  married  a 
Hart,  yet  it  was  Nancy  who  captured  Tories  and  drove 
them  to  the  camps  of  the  patriots.  Hart  county  should 
have  been  called  Nancy  Hart  county. 

Before  I  begin  to  tell  you  what  I  personally  knew 
of  Southern  women  in  the  Civil  "War,  I  shall  tell  you 
something  about  a  class  of  women  who  lived  in  plan- 
tation homes,  and  who  belonged  there,  and  who  raised 
families  and  whose  work  in  the  fields  and  the  kitchen, 
in  the  loom-house  and  the  dwelling,  that  we  occupied 
in  the  Southern  States,  and  who  richly  deserve  hon- 
orable mention,  and  who  contributed  mightily  to  the 

96 


maintenance  of  the  struggling  Confederacy  during 
four  years  of  bloody  warfare. 

I  allude  to  the  colored  women,  who  were  the  cooks, 
the  nurses  and  the  main  reliance  of  the  white  women 
in  their  arduous  duties  and  unremitting  struggle  of 
the  early  60s,  where  numbers  were  to  be  fed  and 
clothed,  nursed  and  protected,  both  black  and  white. 

It  was  a  marvel,  an  enigma  in  abolition  latitudes, 
that  the  slaves  did  not  rise  en-masse,  at  the  beginning 
of  hostilities.  They  marvelled,  still  that  they  did  not, 
as  did  the  Israelites  when  Pharoah  was  buried  under 
the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea.  When  the  Federal  armies 
encircled  the  Confederacy  and  every  day's  supply  be- 
came scarcer  and  more  difficult  to  gather,  and  the 
cordon  was  drawn  closer  in  and  raids  were  al- 
ways threatened  and  many  times  were  experienced, 
it  was  astonishing  that  the  slave  population  did  not 
refuse  to  serve  and  become  unmanageable  to  their 
owners.  They  could  have  "despoiled  the  Egyptians," 
and  yet  strange  to  say  great  numbers  were  not  only 
anxious  to  stay  with  their  white  folks  when  the  sur- 
render came,  and  did  stay  after  emancipation  and  Avas 
a  fact  beyond  dispute.  In  getting  close  to  my  subject 
I  cannot  omit  the  part  that  thousands  of  these  colored 
women  carried  on  in  perfect  or  apparent  harmony 
with  their  mistresses  in  the  big  house,  the  business  of 
those  households. 

I  was  born  and  raised  in  Georgia.  My  active  life 
has  been  linked  with  the  fortunes  and  misfortunes  of 
my  native  state.  I  was  raised  with  the  servants  that 
were  in  my  home  when  I  was  born.  My  nurse,  Agnes, 
was  given  to  my  mother  by  her  parents  to  be  my  nurse. 
I  loved  her  dearly  and  she  often  gave  proof  of  her 
love  for  me.  "When  she  took  unto  herself  a  husband 
lie  lived  on  another  plantation  and  came  to  see  her 
every  Saturday  night  with  a  pass.  When  she  became 
the  mother  of  several  children  and  her  husband's  mas- 
ter would  not  sell  Tom  at  any  price,  Agnes  told  us 
she  would  like  to  go  with  her  husband,  and  she  did 
go  (at  a  sacrifice)  to  oblige  her.  But  when  I  married 
Agnes  came  to  me  and  begged  that  I  should  buy  her 
and  her  family.     She  loved  me  so  well  that  she  was 

97 


willing  to  go  anywhere  to  live  near  me.  The  affection 
was  strong  on  both  sides,  but  there  was  more  money  at 
stake  than  1  could  command. 

My  sister 's  nurse  came  to  her  in  the  same  way.  Mi- 
nerva took  to  herself  a  husband  in  the  family  at  home. 
They  had  their  cabin  and  a  big  wedding  as  a  starter 
in  married  life.  To  the  day  of  her  death  she  was 
equally  devoted  to  my  sister  and  I  am  going  to  say  in 
this  connection,  that  the  strong  affection  that  existed 
between  the  whites  and  blacks  will  give  the  answer  to 
the  question.  "Why  did  not  the  negroes  rise  and 
struggle  for  freedom  when  the  Federal  armies  were 
pressing  the  Confederacy  to  the  wall?"  As  I  stand 
in  this  presence  and  measure  my  words  in  the  sight  of 
Heaven,  I  believe  we  owe  the  security  of  Confederate 
homes  to  the  affection  that  prevailed  between  those 
who  had  lived  together  so  long  and  the  confidence  that 
both  had  in  each  other. 

When  the  majority  of  white  men  were  in  the  army 
and  plantations  were  crowded  with  slaves  large  and 
small,  there  were  fewer  disturbances  than  occurred  be- 
fore or  since  the  Civil  War.  I  recall  my  black  mammy 
who  belonged  to  my  father,  a  childless  black  woman,  a 
cripple  from  white  swelling  since  she  was  eleven  years 
old,  who  was  the  most  capable  and  satisfactory  house 
servant  with  whom  I  have  been  associated  during  my 
long  life.  My  first  recollections  are  of  Mammy.  I 
remember  a  little  stool  in  her  cabin  that  was  kept  for 
my  use.  I  can  see  in  memory  a  little  child  intent  on 
learning  things  Mammy  could  teach  her,  to  knit,  to 
sew,  to  card  cotton  rolls,  and  trying  to  do  what  Mam- 
my did.  I  never  heard  an  ugly  word  from  her  lips.  I 
never  heard  my  parents  utter  a  cross  word  to  her.  I 
can  still  see  the  walls  in  her  cabin  festooned  with 
strings  of  red  pepper,  bachelor  buttons  and  ropes  of 
chips  of  yellow  pumpkin.  Her  small  looking  glass  was 
encircled  with  cedar  twigs  that  had  been  dipped  in 
flour  and  the  happy  child  would  fall  asleep  in  Mam- 
my's lap  and  take  a  nap  on  Mammy's  clean  bed  when 
the  housefolks  were  gone  to  town  or  off  on  a  visit,  or 
at  church.  I  have  never  eaten  anything  more  appetiz- 
ing than  Mammy's  cooking  where  we  ate  together. 

98 


The  best  that  I  had  was  shared  with  her  and  her  hus- 
band, Uncle  Sam,  on  Saturday  nights  always  brought 
chestnuts,  chinquapins,  red  apples  or  bird's  eggs  and 
such  like  and  placed  them  in  the  "till"  of  Mammy's 
chest,  and  there  I  was  sure  to  find  them  on  those 
delightful  visits  to  Mammy's  cabin.  I  had  some  tem- 
per then  and  later  on,  and  one  time  I  got  impatient 
and  slapped  Mammy.  I  knew  I  had  committed  a  se- 
rious offense  but  I  was  too  stubborn  to  say  so.  I  went 
to  the  big  house,  crept  into  my  little  bed  and  suffered 
as  I  deserved  to  suffer  until  Mammy  came  in,  to  get 
her  orders  for  next  morning's  breakfast,  and  broke 
the  news  of  my  late  insurrection  to  my  mother.  I  was 
glad.  I  wanted  to  get  it  done  and  over  with.  I  had 
to  beg  Mammy's  pardon,  and  also  have  her  hug  me 
once  again  to  her  bosom  in  token  of  a  better  peace. 

To  her  dying  day  she  was  a  true  and  faithful  friend. 
These  personal  allusions  will,  I  hope,  illustrate  what 
I  have  intended  to  convey  at  this  time.  When  Mam- 
my's lame  leg  made  an  invalid  of  her,  her  meals  were 
always  sent  from  the  table  and  arranged  by  my  moth- 
er's hands.  Her  clothing  was  good  and  made  for  her 
regularly.  She  knew  she  would  be  cared  for  and  was 
grateful  for  the  affectionate  kindness.  Kindness  begot 
kindness  and  I  do  not  believe  any  living  human  could 
have  persuaded  Mammy  to  consent  to  an  injury  for 
those  she  had  loved  so  well. 

There  were  just  such  colored  women  scattered  all 
over  the  Southland.  I  take  pleasure  in  paying  tribute 
to  their  fidelity  and  general  excellence  for  seeds  of 
violence  might  have  been  quickly  sown  if  the  soil  had 
been  receptive. 

There  was  more  or  less  of  self  interest  in  the  slave 
owner's  attitude  to  such  faithful  ones.  They  were 
valuable  as  property  in  ante-bellum  days.  Their 
health  was  looked  after,  they  had  abundant  plain  food 
and  they  were  provided  with  good  strong,  coarse 
shoes  and  heavy  cloth  garments  in  cold  weather.  There 
was  no  stint  as  to  fuel  and  the  doctor  came  when  they 
were  sick. 

I  chose  to  begin  my  lecture  on  these  efficient  and 
willing  workers  and  I  will  further  say  they  were  ac- 

99 


customed  to  use  better  speech  and  copy  better  man- 
ners from  the  white  folks  at  the  ' '  big  house ' '  as  house 
servants. 

I  know  slavery  had  many  and  glaring  evils.  There 
were  bad  men  then,  also  bad  men  now,  but  the  colored 
women  on  the  farms  were  glad  to  go  to  the  mistress  for 
protection  when  raiders  came  along  and  the  roar  of 
the  enemy's  cannon  could  be  heard  in  the  distance. 
It  is  proposed  to  raise  a  monument  of  either  marble 
or  bronze  to  the  memory  of  the  good  slaves,  and  I 
hope  it  will  be  done.  That  much  money  could  hardly 
be  spent  in  a  more  satisfactory  way.  With  Joshua, 
who  made  his  wind-up  speech  after  the  twelve  stones 
were  placed  in  the  river  Jordan,  we  can  also  say : 
"That  this  may  be  a  sign  among  you  that  when  your 
children  ask  their  fathers  in  time  to  come  what  mean 
ye  by  these  stones" — this  story  can  also  be  told.  The 
Northern  people  had  an  idea  that  Southern  white  wo- 
men were  constitutionally  lazy,  because  of  idle  habits 
and  enervating  climate.  Doubtless  we  had  plenty  of 
idle  people  as  in  other  sections  but  the  wife  and 
mother  on  an  ante-bellum  Southern  plantation  was 
rarely  one  of  such  idle  ones.  Sometimes  there  was  a 
housekeeper  who  was  most  frequently  colored,  but 
the  mistress  of  a  plantation  household  had  to  be  effi- 
cient to  keep  things  going  with  the  necessary  amount 
of  economy  and  caution. 

For  one  thing  I  will  mention  the  prevalence  of  a 
most  generous  hospitality.  Invited  people  came,  of 
course,  but  the  great  majority  came  when  the  notion 
took  them.  There  were  nurses  also  and  carriage  driv- 
ers to  come  with  children  or  invalids.  It  required 
administrative  talent,  executive  ability,  and  unweary- 
ing patience  not  to  mention  economy  to  conduct  such 
establishments,  and  give  satisfaction  to  guests  and 
hostesses.  Such  a  household  had  hotel  appearances, 
without  hotel  remuneration. 

There  was  something  in  these  things  that  might  be 
compared  to  feudal  times,  but  I  never  expect  to  see  in 
any  station  of  life,  where  so  much  entertaining  was  so 
gladly  given,  and  so  little  expected  in  return,  except 
in  kind.     Wealth  accumulated  sometimes,  but  it  was 

100 


the  increase  in  slave  property  that  counted  up.  More 
negroes  meant  more  land,  then  more  land  required 
more  negroes  to  work  it. 

Generally  the  planters  squared  off  their  store  ac- 
counts once  a  year,  at  cotton  selling  time,  hut  Xmas 
was  the  time  of  great  eating  and  sometimes  drinking, 
when  neighbors  and  friends  had  great  spreads  of 
everything  good  to  eat  for  visitors. 

When  young  folks  married  they  were  settled  off 
with  land  and  negroes  and  then  they  traveled  the  same 
old  circuit.  More  negroes  to  cultivate  more  land, 
then  more  land  to  raise  up  more  negroes  to  work  it. 

I  had  foresight  enough  to  see  and  know  that  these 
responsibilities  were  becoming  formidable.  I  could 
as  I  believed,  foretell  a  halt  on  a  machine  that  kept 
spreading  over  ground,  getting  more  difficult  to  man- 
age year  by  year,  but  like  the  rest  of  the  Southern  wo- 
men, I  was  only  a  woman  and  nobody  asked  me  for 
an  opinion. 

It  was  a  great  agricultural  section  of  country  that 
the  Civil  War  broke  upon,  like  a  thunder  clap  from  an 
almost  clear  sky,  with  a  four-years  of  hail  storm  along 
with  it. 

Upon  nobody  did  the  storm  fall  more  dreadful  and 
unexpectedly  than  upon  the  women  of  the  South.  At 
first  there  were  volunteers,  but  there  was  actually  no 
preparation  for  equipping  an  army  in  the  Southern 
States.  The  clothing  problem  was  a  difficult  one. 
The  women  proceeded  to  send  their  blankets  to  the 
army  and  cut  up  their  woolen  carpets  to  help  out  the 
blanket  proposition.  We  scraped  lint  from  all  the 
linen  of  worn  towels  and  table  cloths  and  stripped  the 
sheets  into  bandages  for  the  wounded  in  hospitals. 
We  knitted  socks  and  sleeping"  e^ps,  and  mittens,  inces- 
santly. We  sent  all  the  e:ood  things  like  jellies  and 
preserves  to  the  army.  I  had  two  serviceable  dresses 
of  fine  wool  cloth  with  five  or  six  whole  widths  in  the 
skirt  according  to  style.  I  fashioned  them  into  fa- 
tigue shirts  for  the  boys  in  the  army  and  wore  cotton 
homespun  frocks  at  home.  When  the  war  closed  I 
had  a  silk  dress,  but  not  a  woolen  one  to  my  name. 
For  more  than  two  years  after  the  war  my  best  street 

101 


attire  was  a  home-spun  and  home  woven  linsy  frock, 
the  wool  clipped  from  a  few  sheep  that  we  had 
brought  back  from  a  refugee  home,  and  the  weaving 
paid  for  out  of  my  earnings  as  a  poor  school  teacher. 
The  winter  stockings  on  my  feet  were  knit  by  my 
busy  fingers  at  odd  times,  and  the  shoes  that  carried 
me  through  two  hard  winters  were  fashioned  by  a 
country  shoemaker,  and  made  of  leather  given  by  a 
refugee  friend  who  once  owned  a  tannery  near  the 
Tennessee  line.  This  was  after  the  Civil  War,  remem- 
ber, when  there  were  plenty  of  Northern  made  things 
in  all  the  stores,  but  money  was  scarce,  provisions 
were  high,  and  the  old  home  had  been  dismantled  and 
all  I  could  spare  was  needed  just  there — to  start  up 
housekeeping  in  even  a  very  plain  and  comfortable 
way. 

After  the  blockade  was  effectually  established  dur- 
ing the  Civil  War,  the  South  was  thrown  back  on  na- 
tive supplies.  At  one  time  a  famine  of  salt  was  omi- 
nous. 

The  sea  supply  was  inadequate  and  the  salt  springs 
in  Virginia  were  more  than  once  raided. 

On  all  big  plantations  salt  had  been  lavishly  used 
from  time  immemorial.  Where  sixty  or  seventy  fat 
hogs  were  slaughtered  annually  as  occurred  in  our 
ante-bellum  home,  to  provide  pork  and  bacon  for  a 
large  slave  family,  the  ground  floors  of  these  meat 
houses  were  full  of  dissolved  salt.  The  dirt  was  dug 
up,  thrown  into  big  hoppers  and  water  passed  through 
the  salty  dirt  into  long  troughs.  We  skimmed  and 
boiled  and  reskimmed  and  boiled  and  then  evaporated 
the  water,  securing  quantities  of  gray  salt  that  could 
be  used  to  cure  meat,  I  experimented  with  the  salt 
and  finally  produced  a  little  salt  that  could  be  used 
for  butter. 

The  salt  scare  penetrated  my  entire  being,  and  what 
we  would  have  done  without  salt  still  perplexes  my 
mind.  The  scarcity  of  sugar  was  felt  after  General 
Grant  succeeded  at  Vicksburg  and  cut  off  Louisiana 
sugar. 

But  Georgia,  near  the  southern  limit,  grew  all  the 
sugar  cane  that  was  possible.    Cane  syrup  was  so  good 

102 


and  sorghum  was  a  universal  crop  to  provide  "long- 
sweetening."  Some  poet  should  sing  the  virtues  of 
this  sorghum.  It  tided  us  over  a  very  hard  time  in 
the  Confederacy.  All  silver  money  slid  out  of  sight. 
We  had  bushels  of  Confederate  paper  and  as  many 
"shin  plasters,"  which  were  of  great  service  as  equal 
parts  of  a  dollar. 

Coffee  played  out  completely  in  farm  homes.  We 
had  all  sorts  of  substitutes — parched  wheat,  parched 
rye,  sweet  potatoes  cut  in  small  cubes,  first  dried  in 
the  sun  and  then  cooked  in  an  oven  like  coffee.  Okra- 
seed  was  the  best  of  them  all.  For  tea  we  gathered 
raspberry  leaves  and  the  great  majority  had  sassafras 
root  tea.  It  was  healthy  and  plentiful.  Sweet  pota- 
toes filled  an  immense  place  in  the  Civil  War.  They 
were  roasted  in  the  fireplace,  baked  in  the  ovens,  fried 
in  the  skillets,  boiled  in  the  dinner  pots,  puddinged 
for  dessert,  with  long  sweetening  to  make  it  tooth- 
some. Wheat  flour  was  scarce,  and  we  had  every 
sort  of  corn  cake  that  might  be  contrived  from  the 
"ash  cake"  of  the  cabin  to  the  "Dixie  cake"  of  the 
big  house,  where  it  was  made  to  look  like  pound  cake. 

From  the  time  the  roasting  ears  could  be  prepared 
for  the  table  until  the  lye-hominy  was  plentiful  in 
frosty  weather,  we  had  corn  bread  every  day  in  the 
Southern  homes.  Lee's  soldiers  were  well  satisfied 
when  they  could  get  plenty  of  boiled  corn  in  the 
trenches,  and  the  folks  at  home  made  no  complaint 
if  the  "boys  at  the  front"  were  fed. 

After  Stoneman  raided  from  Atlanta  towards  Ma- 
con, in  July,  1864,  I  knew  a  nice  family  who  had 
nothing  whatever  to  eat  unless  they  chewed  bushes  or 
dug  up  roots  to  quiet  hunger.  After  the  raiders  had 
passed  them  they  gathered  up  the  scattered  corn  left 
by  the  cavalry  horses,  washed  and  rewashed  it  and 
boiled  it  into  hominy  and  kept  going  cheerfully  until 
their  needs  were  made  known  to  more  plentiful  neigh- 
bors. 

It  was  a  serious  time  in  homes,  where  hunger  had 
never  entered  before. 

And  those  long,  waiting,  dreary  winter  nights !  Oh  ! 
those  long  weeks  when  a  battle  had  been  fought  and 

103 


no  letters  from  the  army  came  to  relieve  the  anxiety 
at  home ! ! 

And  the  gude  wife  wrote  the  letters 

To  the  dear  man  at  the  front. 

And  the  handmaid  flung  the  shuttle. 

And  Sambo  shelled  the  corn. 

With  Aveeping  and  with  laughter, 

They  passed  the  time  away. 

Oh !  who  will  tell  this  story, 

To  children  yet  unborn — 

How  these  women  faced  the  terrors, 

With  hearts  oft  crushed  and  torn, 

Yet,  like  Roman  mothers, 

Sent  brave  men  to  the  field. 

"Come  back  to  me  in  honor, 

Or  on  the  bloody  shield ! ' ' 

Perhaps  your  mother,  like  mine,  has  passed  to  her 
eternal  reward,  or  mayhap  she  is  still  here  to  tell  you 
how  awful  it  is  to  be  overrun  by  an  invading  army, 
to  be  driven  to  seek  shelter  in  refugee  homes,  to  see 
the  hand  work  of  a  lifetime  scattered  and  disappear, 
and  to  know  that  those  dearer  than  her  own  life  were 
still  battling  at  the  front  with  big  battles  impending, 
and  newspapers  full  of  casualties,  and  lists  of  the 
known  dead  coming  along  with  awful  certainty  and  in 
great  numbers. 

My  mother  had  only  one  son,  a  cadet  at  the  Marietta 
Military  school,  not  yet  sixteen,  a  beardless  boy,  and 
he  did  enlist  and  left  that  anxious  mother  with  a  smile 
on  his  face,  eager  for  the  excitement  and  the  fray.  He 
spent  his  first  winter  in  West  Virginia,  without  tents 
and  with  deep  snows.  His  mother  couldn't  sleep  at 
night  in  her  warm  bed  because  this  heedless  boy  was 
lying  on  the  ground,  Math  a  rubber  blanket  under 
him,  and  a  wool  blanket  over  him,  and  every  day  was 
a  long  day,  that  she  did  not  hear  from  him  and  with 
the  heedlessness  of  youth  he  only  wrote  when  he  want- 
ed something,  and  he  might  die  and  be  buried  weeks 
before  she  could  hear  from  him.  The  anxiety  of  these 
faithful  women  of  the  South  can  never  be  described  or 
appreciated  by  outsiders. 

104 


When  the  South  lost  out  and  the  will  of  the  mili- 
tary was  the  law  of  the  land,  the  sense  of  helplessness 
of  Southern  homes  was  a  dreadful  burden  to  bear.  A 
country  without  law  is  a  country  to  get  away  from.  I 
was  in  Macon,  Ga.,  the  day  that  Georgia  was  surren- 
dered to  Federal  troops  in  April,  1865.  The  utter 
helplessness  of  a  conquered  people  is  perhaps  the  most 
tragic  feature  of  a  civil  war  or  any  other  sort  of  war. 

But  for  the  fortitude  of  the  women  of  the  Confed- 
eracy, and  the  resolute  courage  of  the  plain  privates, 
the  bottom  would  have  dropped  out  just  then.  The 
story  of  Southern  women  will  never  be  told  until  the 
final  chapter  is  written  of  their  heavy  trials  with 
poverty,  with  poor  help,  with  no  money  to  educate 
their  children  and  no  privileges  of  travel  or  education 
in  new  methods,  in  labor-saving,  etc. 

I  am  going  to  close  with  a  tribute  to  a  dear  woman 
who  was  reared  in  a  lovely  and  refined  home,  and 
made  a  lovely  and  refined  home  for  her  husband  and 
children,  until  war's  rude  alarms  came  to  the  home 
and  took  off  the  husband  and  father. 

She  was  obliged  to  get  away  when  Sherman  began 
to  march  on  Atlanta.  She  was  more  than  two  hundred 
miles  from  home  when  the  civil  war  ceased.  She  and 
her  three  or  four  children  started  back,  with  a  small 
wagon,  one  horse,  and  a  colored  driver,  who  was  glad 
to  go  home  also.  The  driver  walked  beside  the  horse, 
the  small  children  rode  in  the  wagon  and  the  blessed 
woman  walked  the  most  of  the  way  in  that  tedious 
trip.  "When  I  saw  her  first,  after  some  months  of  ab- 
sence from  my  own  home,  she  was  the  brightest,  the 
cheerfulest,  and  as  I  thought,  the  happiest  person  I 
had  met  in  a  long  time.  The  husband  had  also  a  wea- 
ry trip  from  Virginia,  a  footsore  trip  a  good  deal  of 
the  way,  but  as  she  said,  "I  am  so  happy  over  his  re- 
turn, T  am  so  happy  to  be  at  home  again,  reunited  to 
my  dearest  ones,  and  so  happy  over  peace,  blessed 
peace,  I  have  everything  in  life  to  be  thankful  for." 

One  more  and  I  am  done.  After  the  war  had  been 
over  several  years,  we  had  a  little  family  on  our  farm, 
consisting  of  a  widowed  mother  and  her  industrious 

105 


son,  over  21.  Their  whole  dependence  for  a  living  lay 
with  this  well-meaning  son's  wages. 

She  kept  the  house,  had  his  meals  ready  and  did 
some  knitting  to  sell,  and  quilting  for  neighbors.  She 
and  her  husband  had  a  number  of  children  when  he 
was  called  into  service.  The  county  authorities  paid 
out  some  money  or  some  supplies  to  her  until  Sher- 
man came  along  and  everything  was  in  chaos.  She 
lived  in  the  country  where  wood  could  be  gathered 
and  she  had  a  good  Irish  woman  and  some  railroad 
track  hands  for  neighbors,  when  small  pox  broke  out 
in  her  home.  When  two  had  died  and  the  situation  be- 
came extreme  because  everybody  but  the  Irish  peo- 
ple who  were  immune  from  the  disease,  after  inocu- 
lation, were  afraid  to  go  near  her.  A  relative  advised 
of  her  forlorn  condition,  with  every  child  broken  out, 
brought  her  some  provisions  in  a  sack  and  laid  the 
sack  inside  the  fence  and  "talked  to  her  from  the  door. 
He  brought  her  word,  also,  that  her  husband's  re- 
mains were  in  a  coffin  and  lying  on  the  depot  platform 
and  must  be  buried  right  off.  She  did  not  know  that 
he  had  been  sick  in  camp  at  Charleston  until  that 
hour.  For  two  or  three  days  she  had  to  watch  night 
and  day,  only  relieved  by  the  faithful  Irish  woman 
who  came  in  occasionally  as  her  daily  duties  permit- 
ted. It  was  this  boy  now  living  with  her  and  the 
support  of  her  old  age.  He  had  a  bad  case  of  con- 
fluent small  pox  and  would  have  choked  to  death  but 
for  her  incessant  care.  What  a  heroine,  was  that  wo- 
man, in  my  eyes? 

And  there  were  thousands  of  such  women  in  the 
mountain  regions  and  wire-grass  plains  that  suffered 
as  she  did.     It  was  a  dreadful  price  to  pay  for  war! 

In  the  days  that  are  coming  somebody  will  write  a 
full  story  of  the  South 's  hero  women.  Did  not 
Emerson  speak  aright,  when  he  said  "the  heroic  soul 
does  not  sell  its  justice  or  its  nobleness.  It  does  not 
ask  to  dine  nicely  or  to  sleep  warm.  The  essence  of 
greatness  is  the  perception  that  virtue  is  enough.  Pov- 
erty is  its  ornament.  It  does  not  need  plenty  and  can 
very  well  abide  the  loss."  I  salute  this  organization 
of  the  United  Daughters  of  the  Confederacy !    In  the 

106 


name  of  their  brave  mothers  it  is  a  privilege  to  oblige 
them. 

As  Mrs.  Browning  wrote : 

"The  sweetest  lives  are  those  to  duty  wed, 

Whose  deeds  both  great  and  small, 
Like  close-knit  strands  of  an  unbroken  thread 

Where  love  ennobles  all. 
The  world  may  sound  no  trumpets,  ring  no  bells. 

The  Book  of  Life  the  shining  record  tells. 
Thy  love  shall  chant  its  own  beatitudes — 

After  its  own  life-working.     A  child's  kiss 
Set  on  thy  sighing  lips,  shall  make  thee  glad. 

A  poor  man  helped  by  thee  shall  make  thee  rich 
A  sick  man  helped  by  thee  shall  make  thee  strong. 

And  thy  own  life  shall  be  served, 
By  every  service  that  thou  renderest. ' ' 


MY  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  LARGE  EXPOSI- 
TIONS. 


It  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  be  officially  con- 
nected with  several  large  expositions,  and  as  that  asso- 
ciation was  a  liberal  education  to  me,  in  regard  to  our 
commercial  progress  as  a  state  and  nation,  I  deem  it 
well  to  publish  some  data,  that  affected  me  personally 
while  the  story  of  our  commercial  progress  was  being 
officially  recorded  in  the  statistics  of  those  periods. 

After  the  city  of  Chicago  was  accepted  by  Congress 
as  the  place  where  a  national  exposition  would  be  held 
to  commemorate  the  discovery  of  America,  by  Christo- 
pher Columbus,  Congress  also  decided  to  allow  the 
women  of  the  nation  to  elaborate  women's  work  and 
to  share  in  the  duty  of  selecting  the  juries  which 
would  award  medals  and  certificates  of  merit  in  a  com- 
petitive examination  of  such  work  during  the  fair. 
There  were  to  be  two  women  selected  from  each  state 
and  territory,  to  become  a  Board  of  Lady  Managers 
with  a  per  diem  allowance  for  maintenance  and  trav- 
eling expenses,  when  on  duty  in  Chicago.    To  my  sur- 

107 


prise  and  gratification,  I  was  notified  by  General  La- 
fayette McLaws,  of  Augusta,  that  he  had  selected  me 
as  one  of  the  two  Georgia  women  to  act  as  Lady 
Managers  for  the  State  of  Georgia.  I  hold  in  grateful 
and  dutiful  respect  the  memory  of  this  gallant  Con- 
federate general,  who  illustrated  the  courage  and 
patriotism  of  the  state  on  many  hotly  contested  battle 
fields  and  who  died  full  of  years  and  honors,  with 
faithful  service  to  his  country.  He  was  one  of  the 
World's  Fair  Commissioners  and  authorized  to  make 
such  a  selection. 

The  first  call  for  the  assembling  of  this  Board  of 
Lady  Managers  was  duly  published  and  the  members 
met  in  Chicago  on  November  19,  1890. 

Fatigued  with  the  travel  and  occupied  with  a  shop- 
ping effort,  after  I  reached  the  city  I  did  not  meet  any 
of  the  Lady  Managers  until  we  assembled  at  10  A.  M., 
at  Kinsley's  Hall,  to  begin  the  organization  and  map 
out  the  future  activities  of  the  Board. 

Less  than  fifteen  minutes  before  the  President  of 
the  National  Commission  called  the  meeting  to  order, 
I  was  told  by  my  good  friend,  Mrs.  John  A.  Logan, 
widow  of  former  Senator  (and  General)  Logan,  that 
I  had  been  selected  as  Temporary  Chairman  and  must 
preside  until  the  permanent  chairman,  also  to  be  pres- 
ident of  the  Board  of  Lady  Managers,  would  be  chosen 
by  ballot.  I  protested,  that  I  had  never  -presided  over 
any  large  meeting  of  any  sort  in  my  life,  that  I  had 
no  manual  of  parliamentary  tactics  to  refer  to,  and 
no  time  to  collect  my  thoughts,  and  while  I  was  grate- 
ful for  the  compliment,  I  was  afraid  to  allow  my  name 
voted  upon,  because  of  inexperience,  etc. 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  I  was  quicklv  elected  to 
the  position  and  had  barely  time  to  scribble  down  a 
few  words  of  grateful  thanks  for  the  honor,  until  I 
was  escorted  to  the  platform  and  the  gavel  placed  in 
my  hand.  There  were  two  women  from  every  state 
and  territory  before  me,  and  nearly  a  dozen  from  the 
city  of  Chicago,  and  many  of  them  had  been  doing 
duty  in  large  organizations  for  years  past,  and  so  far 
as  I  could  judge  by  their  names,  capable  of  doing  good 
service  as  presiding  officers. 

108 


I  had  thrills  and  nervous  chills,  and  I  could  feel  the 
perspiration  racing  down  my  spine,  although  the 
weather  was  cold  enough  for  the  Arctic  zone,  on  the 
outside. 

I  was  sufficiently  collected  to  request  President 
Thos.  W.  Palmer,  of  the  Men's  Board  to  remain  with 
me  for  a  short  time  and  direct  me,  until  I  recovered 
from  the  agitation  consequent  upon  this  novel  and 
trying  experience.  The  ladies  elected  a  temporary 
secretary  and  we  entered  upon  the  business  of  the 
day. 

It  was  not  until  the  noon  hour  of  the  succeeding  day 
that  we  elected  Mrs.  Potter  Palmer  to  the  Presidency 
and  Miss  Phoebe  Cousins  to  be  secretary,  and  I  was 
permitted  to  relinquish  the  gavel,  and  step  down  to 
a  seat  beside  my  Georgia  colleague,  Mrs.  C.  H.  Olm- 
stead,  of  Savannah,  over  whom  the  Georgia  banner 
had  been  placed  in  the  arrangement  of  seats  on  the 
day  before. 

Perhaps  my  readers  will  be  interested  if  I  copy 
here  the  hasty  address  that  I  made  after  my  election, 
and  my  rival  for  the  position  was  Mrs.  Isabella  Bee- 
cher  Hooker,  of  Connecticut : 

' '  Dear  ladies  of  the  Commission  : 

"As  a  Southern  woman  I  certainly  appreciate  this 
compliment  at  your  hands,  and  my  own  inexperience 
gives  me  more  serious  concern  than  at  any  time  in  my 
life  before.  I  can  only  promise  to  do  my  very  best,  in 
this  unexpected  position.  I  must  rely  upon  your  good 
will  oi-  I  shall  make  a  dismal  failure  of  the  job.  My 
heart  is  full  of  kindness  to  every  one  of  you.  I  know 
no  South,  no  North,  no  East,  no  West.  We  are  all 
dear  sisters  engaged  in  a  work  of  loyalty  and  patriot- 
ism, under  the  grand  old  flag  in  the  home  of  our  fath- 
ers. 

"I  have  no  friend  to  reward,  no  foes  to  punish,  I 
am  simply  yonr  humble  servant  in  a  very  important 
place,  and  I  feel  my  insignificance  and  my  inexperi- 
ence very  greatly  at  this  hour. 

"We  are  here  as  an  official  body,  clothed  wTith  some 
authority.  We  are  allowed  I  suppose  to  make  our  own 
rules,  and  we  have  elected  some  officers  for  a  little 

109 


while.  It  is  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Repub- 
lic that  the  female  sex  has  been  recognized  as  compe- 
tent to  attend  to  any  sort  of  public  business  for  the 
National  Government.  It  is  the  very  first  recogni- 
tion of  woman's  services  as  a  citizen  and  a  tax-payer 
by  Congress.  Therefore  I  feel  the  necessity  as  an  in- 
dividual of  making  haste,  very  slowly  in  all  matters 
concerning  our  permanent  organization.  Let  us  set 
an  example  that  others  may  feel  in  years  to  come  an 
example  of  prudence,  of  patriotism,  of  generous  good 
will  to  every  member  of  the  body  and  of  faithful  devo- 
tion to  our  duty.  Let  us  take  no  step  forward,  that 
we  shall  regret  afterward.  Let  us  remember  we  are 
on  trial  before  this  great  nation.  There  is  a  large  class 
in  this  country  who  are  inimical  to  us,  judging  by  the 
newspapers  who  suppose  that  we  are  supernumeraries, 
if  not  superfluous  appendages  to  this  World's  Fair 
Commission.  For  myself  I  feel  this  is  woman's  grand 
opportunity.  This  is  to  show  to  all  concerned  that  we 
can  be  relied  upon  for  faithful,  effective  and  devoted 
work  in  all  departments  connected  with  our  World's 
Fair  Commission.  Therefore,  again  entreating  your 
kind  assistance  in  discharge  of  the  duty  as  temporary 
chairman  of  which  I  had  not  the  faintest  conception 
an  hour  ago,  I  pronounce  this  Commission  in  session 
and  ready  for  business. ' ' 

It  was  gratifying  when  the  ladies  gave  me  a  rising 
vote  of  thanks  for  my  courtesy  and  impartiality,  dur- 
ing my  short  term  as  a  presiding  officer.  After  we 
adjourned  that  day  for  a  recess,  a  South  Carolina  del- 
egate asked  me  for  a  correct  copy  of  the  little  address 
to  send  to  the  Charleston  News  and  Courier.  I  told 
her  I  had  nothing  but  the  scribbled  notes  on  the  backs 
of  two  envelopes  that  I  found  in  my  hand  bag.  that 
eventful  morning  and  the  published  report  was  fairly 
good. 

Mrs.  Isabella  Beecher  Hooker  was  standing  nearby 
and  heard  what  I  said.  With  characteristic  impulse 
she  turned  on  me,  and  cried  out.  "Would  you  have  us 
believe  that  you  did  not  carefully  prepare  that  fin- 
ished speech  before  you  came  to  the  meeting?  I  am 
more  than  astonished  to  hear  you ! ' ' 

110 


At  first  I  thought  I  could  not  restrain  a  very  harsh 
retort,  but  I  recollected  that  any  dispute  would  quick- 
ly go  to  reporters  and  that  I  would  be  posted  as  hav- 
ing a  quarrel  with  a  member  of  the  Beecher  family — 
the  North  and  South  in  early  conflict,  so  I  held  my- 
self down,  when  I  replied,  "If  you  will  kindly  ac- 
cept Mrs.  Logan  as  a  witness,  she  will  tell  you  that 
it  was  impossible  that  I  should  have  known,  that  I 
was  to  be  nominated  for  temporary  chairman  until 
we  met  in  this  hall,  and  my  colleague  can  tell  you,  that 
I  scribbled  off  what  I  read  within  a  few  minutes  be- 
fore I  was  elected." 

"A  kind  answer  turneth  away  wrath"  as  we  are 
told,  and  that  episode  or  something  else,  turned  Mrs. 
Hooker  into  a  friend  and  agreeable  co-worker  so 
long  as  we  were  members  of  the  Board  of  Managers. 
When  our  history  committee  were  collecting  the  ma- 
terials for  a  concise  story  of  this  world's  fair  commis- 
sion so  far  as  related  to  our  scope  of  woman's  work, 
the  chairman  said  they  retained  my  address  because 
' '  it  was  good,  and  wore  well. ' ' 

With  such  early  experience  and  such  unexpected  at- 
tention, I  made  no  effort  thereafter  for  place  or  power 
on  the  board,  and  my  chief  duty  lay  in  assigning  space 
in  the  Woman's  Building  and  in  writing  the  story  of 
Woman's  organizations  which  occupied  space  therein. 
There  were  more  than  sixty  of  such  active  organiza- 
tions and  the  South  was  connected  with  only  one  or 
two.  In  that  early  day  the  Southern  men  were  pre- 
judiced against  anything  that  savored  of  women's 
rights,  etc.  Nothing  that  Northern  and  Western  wo- 
men advocated  was  palatable  to  our  politicians  and 
preachers.  There  was  not  a  woman's  club  in  Georgia, 
until  after  that  world's  fair,  when  one  was  inaugurat- 
ed in  Atlanta,  during  the  Cotton  States  and  Interna- 
tional Exposition,  which  opened  in  the  year  1895.  The 
Chicago  Exposition  was  so  much  of  a  success  that 
other  expositions  were  inaugurated  in  somewhat  rapid 
succession.  Mrs.  Potter  Palmer  was  a  fine  president 
for  the  Woman's  Board  and  my  association  with  the 
Board  has  given  me  some  very  delightful  friendships 
as  the  years  rolled  on. 

ill 


I  can  hardly  realize  that  twenty-nine  years  have 
rolled  along  since  that  cold  November  day  in  Chicago, 
when  I  was  suddenly  precipitated  into  a  high  office, 
over  my  protest,  and  where  I  am  still  satisfied  there 
were  many  better  qualified  women  for  the  temporary 
chairmanship.  I  am  glad  I  was  able  to  perform  with 
satisfaction  to  the  ladies  and  feel  grateful  still  for 
their  kindness.  As  chairman  of  the  assignment  of 
space  committee  I  gave  two  months  of  arduous  duty 
to  these  locations.  A  surveyor  made  plats  of  every 
part  of  Woman's  Building  and  every  foot  and  inch 
was  accounted  for  in  distributing  the  space.  I  had 
abiding  interest  in  the  organization  room  because  I 
had  sufficient  foresight  to  understand  that  they  would 
not  only  survive  the  exposition,  but  would  continue 
to  rapidly  increase,  as  has  happened,  after  every 
vestige  of  the  "White  City"  had  vanished.  We  de- 
cided to  make  the  decorations  uniform,  and  the  parti- 
tions were  made  by  large  gilt  railings  with  hangings 
of  robin-egg  blue  silk  manufactured  at  a  silk  mill  in 
New  Jersey.  My  interest  in  these  organizations  pos- 
sibly induced  Mrs.  Palmer  to  select  me  as  historian 
of  their  display.  They  furnished  me  with  a  brief  re- 
cital of  their  beginnings  and  their  success  in  Chicago 
during  the  Fair,  and  I  edited  their  papers.  Although 
the  history  has  never  yet  been  published  owing  to  the 
fact  that  the  gigantic  undertaking  consumed  not  only 
all  the  allowance  provided  by  Act  of  Congress,  but 
also  took  over  the  savings  of  the  Woman's  Board  to 
settle  the  debts  which  we  had  no  share  in  piling  up. 
I  have  a  copy  of  my  work,  thus  preparing  the  story 
of  Women's  Organizations  in  1893  and  I  am  still  hop- 
ing something  will  occur  to  publish  an  official  account 
of  their  status,  at  that  early  day. 

Time  and  space  will  not  allow  a  more  extended  no- 
tice of  woman's  work  twenty-nine  years  ago,  at  this 
writing. 

I  was  also  chairman  of  the  committee  on  agriculture 
and  we  made  diligent  search  for  the  percentage  of 
woman's  work  among  farm  exhibits,  but  everything 
was  submerged  in  men's  work.  Since  the  Indians  oc- 
cupied America,  women  have  had  active  service  in 

112 


crude  agriculture,  and  have  done  their  share  up  to 
date  in  domestic  service,  yet  there  was  still  no  regard 
given  to  her  activities.  The  Bible  saying:  "A  man 
and  his  wife  are  one, ' '  read  correctly  for  the  man  was 
the  only  one. 
The  Cotton  States  and  International  Exposition. 

While  I  was  finishing  up  my  story  of  the  organiza- 
tion room  in  Chicago  in  midsummer  of  1894,  I  was 
notified  that  I  had  been  selected  as  one  of  the  five 
women  to  initiate  or  inaugurate  a  woman's  board  in 
Atlanta  to  carry  on  a  Woman's  Building  with  elabor- 
ate attention  to  exhibits  of  woman's  work  for  this 
great  Southern  exposition. 

In  organizing  the  full  board  which  numbered  more 
than  fifty  ladies,  I  was  elected  for  the  position  of 
chairman  of  executive  committee.  My  health  and 
strength  were  taxed  for  the  service  but  I  held  on  to 
the  end.  I  still  think  we  had  the  most  loyal  and  en- 
thusiastic crowd  of  Southern  women  that  ever  were 
gathered  together  to  make  a  notable  success  of  this 
Atlanta  exposition. 

A  goodly  company  of  the  Chicago  notables  made  us 
a  visit,  including  President  Higgenbotham  and  Mrs. 
Potter  Palmer,  and  they  gave  us  unstinted  praise  for 
our  zeal  and  exhibits.  The  impetus  then  given  to  Wo- 
men's organizations  has  never  slackened.  The  "At- 
lanta Spirit"  is  shared  equally  by  its  citizens,  of  both 
sexes,  up  to  this  good  hour. 

The  Tennessee  Centennial. 

I  was  also  an  official  visitor  when  Nashville  was 
alive  with  enthusiasm,  in  1897,  being  chosen  by  the 
Georgia  Commissioner  of  Agriculture  to  look  over  the 
exhibits.  We  were  delightfully  entertained,  had  an 
official  banquet  given  the  delegates  on  Georgia  day, 
and  I  made  an  address  in  Woman's  Building  to  the 
Confederate  veterans  who  were  holding  their  annual 
reunion  at  the  same  time.  I  had  made  a  similar  address 
the  year  before  at  Baltimore,  before  the  U.  D.  C.  con- 
vention when  I  urged  the  Southern  women  to  devote 
their  energies  to  the  education  of  the  illiterate  chil- 
dren and  grand  children  of  the  dead  Confederate  sol- 
diers as  the  very  best  work  that  could  possibly  be 

113 


given  with  their  time  and  money.  I  retain  pleasing 
recollections  of  the  many  thanks  and  encomiums  that 
I  received  at  both  places,  because  of  my  effort  to  ini- 
tiate the  undertaking.  One  enthusiastic  Tennessee 
lady  had  my  Baltimore  address  printed  and  circulated 
all  over  her  state,  before  the  Tennessee  Centennial 
opened  its  doors  to  the  public. 


The  St.  Louis  Exposition. 

I  was  selected  as  a  juror  for  this  mammoth  exhibi- 
tion held  in  St.  Louis  in  1904.  In  placing  the  jurors 
I  was  given  a  place  on  the  general  committee  of  agri- 
culture. There  were  several  subdivisions  of  minor 
rank  and  importance,  but  the  jury  to  which  I  was  as- 
signed, examined  and  adjudged  the  great  industrial 
efforts  of  the  United  States,  including  irrigation.  We 
gave  attention  to  silos,  and  every  agricultural  appli- 
ance that  was  a  fixture  on  farms.  We  also  examined 
the  individual  Missouri  exhibit  that  was  one  of  the 
most  telling  features  of  the  exposition.  The  jury  to 
which  I  was  assigned  had,  as  a  member,  a  professor 
from  the  University  of  Berlin,  who  taught  agriculture 
in  that  institution.  I  was  chosen  as  secretary  and 
wrote  the  report  of  this  ranking  committee,  on  General 
Agriculture.  The  work  begun  at  stated  hours,  and 
held  on  well  into  the  afternoon.  I  had  no  time  to  de- 
vote to  sight-seeing  as  we  were  confined  to  three  weeks 
and  had  no  leisure  for  such  things.  A  hasty  lunch  we 
secured  in  the  Agricultural  Building,  and  I  generally 
found  myself  at  an  English  lunch  counter  where 
delicious  bread  called  "Scones,"  was  cooked  by  elec- 
tricity. Buttered,  when  hot,  they  were  good  enough 
for  the  most  fastidious.  It  was  a  four-mile  street  car 
ride  to  our  boarding  place  in  the  city,  and  I  could 
fill  a  good-sized  newspaper  with  my  varied  adventures 
in  street  car  travel,  when  I  had  to  sit  sometimes  on 
my  big  hand  bag  on  the  floor  or  hold  on  to  strap  to 
keep  my  feet  in  the  ever-moving  crowd  that  was  get- 
ting on  and  getting  off. 

In  my  rush  to  get  a  street  car  seat,  when  I  left  my 
boarding  place  to  take  a  South  Bound  train  to  go  home 

114 


I  had  started  at  4  P.  M.  I  had  nothing  better  than  a 
seat  in  the  rear  doorway  on  my  traveling  bag,  and  it 
was  long  after  dark  when  I  reached  the  terminal  sta- 
tion and  then  the  scramble  began  to  get  my  ticket  val- 
idated and  also  my  trunk  checked — the  second  time. 
Red  tape  ruled  all  the  arrivals  and  departures.  It  was 
after  ten  P.  M.  before  I  finally  found  my  berth  in 
sleeping  car,  and  I  feel  sure  I  walked  a  full  mile,  up 
and  down  about  and  around  before  I  got  away  from 
that  jam  in  that  depot. 

More  families  were  separated  and  children  mis- 
placed than  I  had  ever  seen  before,  and  a  friend  of 
mine,  who  started  home  a  few  days  later,  with  two  chil- 
dren, never  got  away  from  the  same  depot  until  morn- 
ing light  appeared.  I  was  a  visitor  at  the  Philadel- 
phia Centennial  in  1876.  I  was  in  Chicago  off  and  on 
for  four  years,  1890  to  94.  I  saw  the  immense  jams 
where  millions  were  filling  the  streets,  but  St.  Louis 
and  the  Terminal  Station  was  a  long  ways  ahead  of 
everything  in  difficult  dealing  with  crowds,  where 
people  were  rushing  hither  and  yon,  and  generally  lost 
or  separated  from  each  other,  that  I  ever  witnessed. 

I  was  too  advanced  in  years  to  attempt  the  trip  to 
San  Francisco  Exposition.  I  had  wholesome  dread  of 
immense  crowds,  where  human  life  is  so  exposed.  In 
Chicago  I  saw  an  immense  cold  storage  building  burn 
to  the  ground,  where  many  persons,  including  a  num- 
ber of  fire-fighters,  dropped  into  the  flames  like  flies. 

But  I  feel  glad  that  I  have  seen  so  many  good 
things,  great  things,  and  priceless  paintings  and  orna- 
ments, that  could  never  be  inspected  by  such  as  I  am 
under  any  other  conditions  or  circumstances. 


"INTERESTING     INCIDENTS     IN    THE    LIFE    OF    MRS. 
WILLIAM    H.    FELTON. 


' '  She  is  an  old  woman  who  has  been  a  '  new  woman '  for  fully 
thirty  years.  Pleads  for  textile  education  of  women.  Be- 
lieves that  Georgia's  factory  girls  should  have  every  oppor- 
tunity. 

By  Isma  Dooly. 
"I  believe  that  one  of  the  greatest  movements  that  Georgia's 
earnest  women  could  undertake  at  present  would  be  to  co-oper- 

115 


ate  in  their  determination  to  secure  textile  education  for  our 
poor  factory  girls. ' ' 

' '  The  speaker  was  Mrs.  William  H.  Felton,  Georgia 's  well- 
known  '  stateswoman, '  and  characteristic  of  her,  she  supple- 
mented this  utterance  with  her  reasons  for  thus  expressing  her- 
self. 

' '  This  class  of  young  women  is  one  to  which  no  helping  hand 
has  been  extended,  and  I  believe  that  the  time  has  come  now 
when  not  only  justice,  but  the  development  of  our  state's  tex- 
tile interests  demand  that  the  cotton  mill  women,  as  well  as  the 
cotton  mill  men,  be  equipped  for  usefulness  and  future  profit 
to  themselves  and  the  commonwealth. ' ' 

' '  I  am  delighted  to  see  that  textile  education  has  been  pro- 
vided for  our  boys  at  the  Technological  institute,  but  what 
about  the  textile  education  of  our  girls?  When,  at  the  request 
of  The  Constitution,  I  visited  some  of  the  cotton  factories  of 
the  state  to  refute  a  slanderous  statement  made  in  a  northern 
publication  relative  to  the  status  of  the  women  therein,  I  found 
that  the  vast  majority  of  the  operatives  were  deserving  women 
and  girls;  almost  seven-tenths  of  the  laborers  employed  being 
females.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  prosperity  of  our 
state  in  textile  industry  demanded  that  educational  advantages 
be  given  to  the  women  as  well  as  the  men,  especially  since  the 
former  are  in  the  majority,  and  uneducated  labor  on  the  part 
of  women  is  as  detrimental  to  progress  as  it  is  on  the  part 
of  men." 

' '  Mrs.  Felton  reasoned  that  under  the  freest  constitution,  ig- 
norant people  are  still  slaves,  and  that  to  leave  the  hundreds 
of  women  working  in  the  factories  like  mere  machines  of  man- 
ual labor,  while  the  men  are  given  the  advantages  of  superior 
training,  is  incongruous  with  laws  of  progress,  relegating  la- 
boring women  to  a  condition  scarcely  removed  from  slavery. 

"  'I  feel  every  day, '  continued  Mrs.  Felton,  her  voice  falter- 
ing, '  that  I  will  not  be  here  many  years  longer  to  fight  for  these 
poor  women  who  have  learned  to  call  me  their  '  friend, '  and  I 
shall  never  cease  while  I  have  the  strength  to  do  it  to  plead  for 
their  rights.  Nothing  in  my  life  has  touched  me  more  deeply 
than  their  gratitude.  Last  year  from  their  pitiful  paltry  wages 
some  in  the  cotton  factories  of  Georgia  contributed  $60  toward 
a  fund  with  which  they  desired  to  buy  me  a  present.  '  No, '  I 
replied  to  them,  'I  do  not  wish  a  gift,  but  when  I  am  dead 
let  the  money  buy  the  marble  tablet  that  will  mark  my  last 
resting  place.' 

' '  Mrs.  Felton 's  views  on  any  subject  are  always  interesting 
to  the  people  of  Georgia,  and  there  are  few  women  better  known 
north  and  south  than  is  she. 

"From  time  to  time  she  has  come  before  the  public  in  the 
press,  expressing  her  views  on  all  subjects  that  interest  the 
thinking  minds  of  the  day. 

"Whether  on  the  rostrum  before  the  more  enlightened  au- 
dience, before  political  gatherings  in  the  rural  districts,  or 
through  the  columns  of  the  daily  press,  Mrs.  Felton  when  drawn 

116 


into  controversy  has  always  proven  herself  the  "stronger  man 
of  the  two." 

' '  Although  a  woman,  and  a  woman  with  all  the  impulsive- 
ness characteristic  of  her  sex,  she  has  never  in  the  history  of 
her  eventful  career  made  a  statement  that  she  has  had  to  re- 
tract. Whether  meeting  with  general  approval  or  not,  when  she 
takes  a  stand  in  any  matter,  political  or  otherwise,  before  ex- 
pressing herself  at  all,  she  forms  her  opinion  of  it  on  the  firm- 
ness of  the  conviction  that  she  is  right.  With  this  basic  prin- 
ciple underlying  all  she  does,  with  a  masculine  vigor  of  intel- 
lect, and  with  over  thirty  years '  experience  as  a  participant  in 
Georgia's  public  life,  Mrs.  Felton  is  well  equipped  to  discuss 
with  any  man  or  woman  the  social  problems  of  the  times. 

' '  Notwithstanding  her  very  active  life,  and  the  trials  and 
tribulations  that  have  come  into  it  from  the  days  of  the  sur- 
render up  to  the  present  time,  Mrs.  Felton  is  what  the  world 
would  call  a  well  preserved  woman.  During  her  recent  visit  to 
Atlanta  her  friends  were  struck  with  her  health  and  strength. 
Although  nearly  seventy  years  of  age,  her  eyes  are  as  bright 
and  beaming  as  those  of  a  woman  one-third  her  age,  and  her 
snowy  white  hair  is  combed  smoothly  back  from  a  brow  that  in 
its  beauty  shows  very  few  lines  of  care.  Her  prominence  in 
public  life,  her  active  participation  in  politics,  and  the  amount 
of  work  she  accomplishes  in  the  outside  world  may  suggest  that 
she  is  held  aloof  from  the  general  pursuits  of  woman  in  the 
home,  but  such  is  not  the  case.  She  is  distinguished  for  the 
perfect  order  maintained  in  the  domestic  side  of  her  life,  and 
her  excellent  housekeeping  is  never  neglected  for,  or  hampered 
by,  her  public  work. 

' '  She  is  an  old  woman  who  has  been  a  '  new  woman '  for 
thirty  years,  and  that  long  ago  advocated  in  the  face  of  a  uni- 
versal prejudice  the  same  lines  of  progress  agitating  today  the 
woman 's  organizations  of  her  state.  Whereas,  she  sympathizes 
with  the  principles  of  these,  her  residence  in  the  country  pre- 
vents her  taking  active  part  in  their  daily  operations. 

"Mrs.  Felton  has  taken  her  stand  in  public  life  as  jn  indi- 
vidual, assuming  responsibility  as  such  and  making  for  her 
self  a  name  that  will  be  inseparable  from  many  incidents  mak- 
ing interesting  Georgia's  history  of  the  closing  days  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

' '  The  keynote  of  the  good  she  has  done  and  tried  to  do  is 
doubtless  her  sense  of  duty  which  has  been  dominant  in  her 
every  undertaking  from  her  earliest  school  days  up  to  the 
present  moment. 

"In  discussing  the  striking  incidents  of  her  life  not  long 
since,  she  remarked : 

"  ' I  am  a  country  raised  woman,  and  have  spent  the  most 
of  my  life  upon  farms.  My  parents  gave  me  the  best  educa- 
tion that  the  state  and  their  means  would  allow  in  the  early 
fifties. 

"  '  I  was  an  ambitious  young  person,  and  always  sought  to 
be  at  the  head  of  my  class  in  literary  studies,  in  music  and  in 
drawing. 

117 


' '  '  I  shared  the  first  honors  in  my  college  class  when  barely 
seventeen,  the  youngest  of  the  lot,  and  kept  my  place  in  piano 
and  guitar  music.  I  have  always  been  pleased  to  know  that  my 
dear  parents  were  also  pleased  with  my  progress,  for  I  es- 
teemed their  pleasure  to  be  the  highest  medal  or  token  of  ap- 
proval that  was  ever  granted  to  my  efforts.  As  I  look  back 
on  my  past  life  there  was  never  anything  more  precious  to  me 
than  their  loving  smiles  and  shining  tears  of  delight  that 
greeted  me  at  the  school  examinations  and  commencements  when 
I  was  passed  on  with  the  plaudits  of  my  teachers  and  my  father 
and  mother  could  say :  '  Well  done,  my  child. ' 

"  'How  careful  those  old-fashioned  teachers  were,'  continued 
Mrs.  Felton.  '  How  genuine  their  methods !  I  was  expected  to  be 
thorough  in  my  work,  to  know  what  I  studied  before  I  left  the 
book,  and  to  be  able  to  give  a  rule  and  a  reason  for  any  sub- 
ject that  I  was  examined  upon  in  my  school  days.  I  recall 
again  how  we  were  '  rooted '  and  '  grounded '  in  the  primary 
studies;  how  I  was  required  to  know  every  rule  and  every  ex- 
ception to  a  rule  in  the  English  grammar  before  we  went  fur- 
ther; every  table,  rule  or  measure  in  arithmetic,  before  we  went 
to  algebra  or  geometry,  and  common  spelling  was  the  recrea- 
tion of  the  entire  school  from  Monday  morning  till  Friday 
night.  There  was  no  parade,  no  show  of  learning,  it  was  plain 
matter  of  fact  work — '  Get  your  lesson,  and  never  forget  it ' — 
that  was  the  alpha  and  omega  of  my  school  life  from  start  to 
finish. 

' '  '  Out  of  school  my  school  of  life  began  early, '  said  Mrs. 
Felton.  'I  married  at  sharp  eighteen  and  was  a  mother 
after  nineteenth  birthday.  For  eight  or  ten  years  my 
life  was  so  absorbed  in  my  children  that  it  was  cloisterlike, 
months  elapsing,  sometimes,  when  my  feet  were  never  outside 
the  front  gate.  I  had  my  music  and  my  books  to  enliven  the 
monotony,  and  I  now  discover  that  I  was  placed  by  the  Al- 
mighty in  a  domestic  training  school,  with  close  and  rigid  dis- 
cipline, that  I  might  not  only  have  time  to  love  and  nurture 
my  little  ones,  but  also  to  broaden  a  girl 's  mind  into  the 
mature  experience  of  an  earnest  woman  who  had  the  opportu- 
nity to  look  up  'through  nature  unto  nature's  God.' 

"  '  I  read  everything  in  reach — history,  fiction  and  even  a 
smatter  of  medicine,  with  a  little  babe  in  my  lap,  and  my  key 
basket  at  my  elbow,  because  I  was  also  housekeeper  for  a  large 
family,  directing  every  day's  expenditure  and  outlining  every 
clay 's  supplies.  I  was  only  one  of  the  many  wives  and  South- 
ern women  who  had  oversight  of  domestic  affairs  on  a  large 
plantation,  and  I  believe  the  experience  of  such  Southern  wo- 
men in  ante-bellum  days  compassed  results  in  cultivated  and 
refined  hospitality  that  the  world  will  never  know  again  by 
reason  of  the  lack  of  such  extraordinary  conditions  and  sur- 
roundings. When  the  civil  war  broke  out  I  had  two  little  boys, 
with  a  baby  girl  'under  the  daisies,'  and  a  heavy  burden  of 
responsibility,  care  and  anxiety  for  the  people  at  home,  and 
sympathy  for  those  in  the  field." 

118 


The  weariness  in  Mrs.  Felton 's  tone  seemed  to  die  out  when 
she  arrived  at  that  period  of  her  discourse,  and  she  reviewed 
her  life  during  the  war  with  the  same  fluency  and  brightness 
with  which  she  handles  every  subject  that  interests  her. 

' '  '  Those  four  years  of  bloody  war  turned  many  a  raven 
lock  as  white  as  mine  are  now,'  she  said.  'We  cared  for  refu- 
gees until  we  became  ourselves  refugees,  and  fled  before  Sher- 
man 's  army.  It  would  require  volumes  to  tell  the  story  of  pri- 
vation, suffering  and  death,  because  I,  too,  came  back  to  a 
devastated  home,  a  childless  mother,  with  poverty  staring  me  in 
the  face,  and  the  necessity  of  becoming  a  wage-earning  woman 
before  me,  and  with  no  opportunity  for  earning  wages  save  a 
return  to  the  schoolroom  and  music  room  in  the  capacity  of  a 
teacher.  I  sometimes  went  hungry  because  my  food  was  poor 
and  oftentimes  scanty,  but  an  All  wise  Heavenly  Father  led  me 
into  the  unwonted  path  of  loving  other  people 's  children  and 
brought  comfort  and  gladness  to  a  lone  mother's  bereaved 
heart  while  she  taught  and  helped  along  these  innocent  and 
impoverished  children  of  a  war-stripped  section  of  our  countrv. 
I  had  often  wondered  before  this  time  of  my  life  why  it  was 
that  I  should  have  been  so  eager  to  perfect  myself  as  far  as  I 
could  in  music  and  literature,  when  my  arms  and  heart  were  so 
full  in  care  of  my  own  babies,  but  in  the  exigency  that  thus 
happened  to  me  after  the  surrender  I  saw  the  benefit  and  the 
blessing.  I  was  able  to  teach  the  higher  mathematics  and 
helped  to  equip  our  school  of  eighty  pupils  with  efficient  and 
valuable  services  in  professorships  that  would  be  difficult  to  fill 
at  any  time,  and  especially  where  no  money  for  salaries  was 
available  in  the  later  sixties,  when  everybody  was  poor. 

' '  '  Within  two  years  we  were  able  to  raise  our  bread  and 
meat  at  home,  and  I  went  into  the  old  time  occupation  of  a 
farmer  's  wife,  with  rigid  economy  and  utmost  saving  '  to  make 
both  ends  meet. '  Two  other  little  boys  came  to  gladden  my 
life  (one  to  stay  with  me  but  a  few  months),  when  Dr.  Fel- 
ton's name  began  to  be  mentioned  for  congress  in  our  district." 

With  Dr.  Felton  's  political  career  began  his  wife 's,  and  to 
the  onlooker  there  has  been  no  more  interesting  figure  in  Geor- 
gia politics  for  the  last  thirty  years  than  Mrs.  William  H.  Fel- 
ton. 

"Relative  to  her  first  steps  in  politics,  Mrs.  Felton  resumed: 
'  There  was  an  unacceptable  democratic  nominee  and  the  re- 
sult was  an  independent  candidate  in  the  year  1874.  Dr.  Fel- 
ton announced  himself  in  June,  and  from  that  time  until  the 
election  in  November  I  was  in  the  thick  of  it. 

"  'Without  a  daily  newspaper,  and  only  two  little  weeklies 
that  hot  canvass  was  made  by  Dr.  Felton  on  the  stump  and  my 
individual  work  with  my  pen.  I  wrote  hundreds  of  letters  all 
over  fourteen  counties.  I  wrote  night  and  day,  and  for  two 
months  before  the  close  kept  a  man  and  a  horse  at  the  door  to 
catch  every  mail  train  three  miles  away.  How  I  lived  through 
that  ordeal  I  can  never  tell.  The  like  of  this  campaign  was 
never  known  before  or  since  in  Georgia.  At  one  time  health 
broke  down,  but  I  was  propped  up  in  bed  with  pillows  and 

119 


wrote  ahead.  I  made  appointments  for  speaking,  planned  for 
speakers,  answered  newspaper  attacks,  and  more  than  all,  kept 
a  brave  face  to  the  foe  and  a  smiling  face  to  the  almost  ex- 
hausted candidate.  Dr.  Felton  spoke  three  times  a  day  on  an 
average,  and  that  meant  three  fresh  shirts  a  day.  But  I  had 
those  shirts  ready  when  he  rushed  in,  all  packed  and  ready  as 
he  rushed  out  and  away  into  that  fearful  exhausting  struggle. 

' '  '  The  congressional  count  was  in  doubt  three  entire  days, 
Dr.  Felton  was  counted  in  and  out  time  and  again,  and  the 
wires  were  kept  hot  to  know  the  result.  At  last  he  came  in, 
in  spite  of  all,  with  his  eighty -two  majority. 

"  'When  I  had  time  to  think  of  myself,  I  had  lost  flesh  like 
one  with  a  dreadful  fever,  my  dress  hung  on  me  like  a  bag,  and 
I  could  neither  eat  nor  sleep  for  days  from  excitement  and 
fatigue. 

"  'But  success  is  a  great  tonic,"  observed  Mrs.  Felton,  and 
her  bright  dark  eyes  looked  as  exulting  as  they  must  have  when 
she  heard  the  good  news  of  her  husband 's  election  many  years 
before. 

1 '  '  I  was  up  and  ready  for  a  six  years '  struggle  in  and  out 
of  Washington,  where  I  still  wrote  letters,  wrote  for  the  news- 
papers, worked  for  constituents  before  the  departments,  doing 
the  work  of  the  present  clerks  to  congressmen,  and  without  ex- 
pecting a  cent,  but  just  for  the  love  of  the  work  and  loyalty 
to  Dr.  Felton 's  interests.  In  some  of  the  campaigns  I  traveled 
with  him  all  over  the  district.  In  other  campaigns  I  'stayed  by 
the  stuff, '  and  planned  the  campaign.  The  history  of  my  life 
during  that  period  would  surpass  a  novel  in  startling  surprises, 
because  the  fight  on  the  independent  congressman  never  ceased 
or  abated  one  iota.  As  soon  as  the  enemy  left  the  trenches  and 
took  to  'counting  out,'  then  we  were  defeated.  Until  they 
adopted  the  '  counting  out  process '  our  little  band  was  invin- 
cible. 

"  'You  want  to  know  when  1  really  entered  public  life. 

"  '  I  did  not  enter ;  I  was  shot  into  it,  as  by  a  catapult,  and 
I  learned  politics  in  front  of  Gatling  guns  and  Mauser  rifles. 
The  foe  left  nothing  undone  that  human  ingenuity  could  devise 
or  tricky  politicians  could  muster  up.  As  soon  as  I  could  get 
an  inkling  of  their  respective  political  histories,  I  made  it  lively 
for  the  gentlemen,  and  it  was  an  unequal  but  vivacious  struggle, 
with  one  woman  versus  some  dozens  of  north  Georgia  politi- 
cians. When  convict  lease  politicians  attacked  Dr.  Felton,  I 
searched  the  records  and  made  the  lease  and  the  lessees  step 
around  lively.  When  the  state  road  lessees  entered  our  politics, 
I  posted  myself  and  flung  hand  grenades  until  the  whole  thing 
got  in  a  blaze. 

"  'Whenever  they  showed  heads  above  the  ramparts,  this 
sharp  shooter  in  woman's  form  deliberately  picked  them  off 
for  public  amusement  and  feminine  revenge. 

"  'Did  they  attack  me? 

"  'Yes!  times  without  number,  but  I  have  always  been 
careful  to  know  I  was  correct  in  my  statements,  and  then  I 

120 


had  nothing  to  fear.  About  a  dozen  years  ago  I  joined  the 
Woman 's  Christian  Temperance  Union.  I  introduced  a  resolu- 
tion pledging  the  union  to  a  reformatory  for  youthful  crimi- 
nals and  a  separate  prison  for  women  convicts  in  April,  1886. 
The  organization  authorized  me  to  memorialize  the  legislature 
on  these  two  reforms  that  summer.  When  my  petition  was 
read  before  the  legislature  the  ball  opened.  Dr.  Felton,  as  a 
member,  championed  the  reforms,  and  the  whole  pack,  '  Tray, 
Blanche  and  Sweetheart, '  opened  on  us  both.  I  heard  myself 
denominated  as  the  political  'She'  of  Georgia. 

"  'I  was  sneered  at  as  a  reformer  and  vials  of  wrath  were 
poured  out  on  my  spouse,  who  was  helping  me  in  my  work  as  I 
had  so  long  helped  him  in  his  political  work. 

"  '1  sat  in  the  same  hall  five  days  later  and  listened  to  Dr. 
Felton 's  reply  that  will  never  be  surpassed  for  strength  and 
powerful  invective  so  long  as  the  English  language  exists.  I 
forgot  myself  in  admiration  of  my  defender  and  his  marvelous 
defense.  I  saw  that  audience  also  forget  itself  and  rise  as  one 
man  to  cheer  and  shout  in  praise  of  the  speaker.  Such  a  day 
as  that  marks  a  milestone  as  big  as  the  Washington  monument. 
The  reformatory  for  juvenile  convicts  had  a  small  beginning 
and  only  a  woman  to  start  it,  but  such  as  it  was,  I  had  the  re- 
sponsibility and  the  honor  of  agitating  and  launching  the 
craft  into  sailing  waters.  More  than  six  years  later  I  was 
gratified  to  find  that  the  convict  women  were  quietly  separated 
into  other  camps  and  I  felt  certain  that  had  Senator  Joseph  E. 
Brown  lived  a  few  years  longer  he  would  have  made  a  refor- 
matory system  for  the  juvenile  criminals  under  his  control. 

"  'What   of   my  prohibition   interests? 

"  '  I  expect  I  was  the  first  Georgia  woman  to  take  the  plat- 
form to  urge  voters  to  remember  their  homes  and  their  children 
in  prohibition  contests.  I  do  not  mean  before  conventions  or 
before  lecture  going  people,  I  mean  a  public  appeal  on  the  eve 
of  elections,  when  men's  hearts  were  raging  for  and  against 
and  the  ballot  alone  could  make  a  verdict.  I  am  practical  or  I 
am  nothing.  It  is  a  waste  of  time  to  talk  to  people  who  are 
of  the  same  mind  as  yourself  in  such  a  crisis.  But  it  means 
a  great  deal  when  you  can  face  the  foe  with  logic  unanswerable 
and  pleading  for  their  own  homes  and  their  own  children  win 
them  to  your  side  of  the  argument.  I  have  been  sneered  at 
from  pulpits,  jeered  at  in  print  and  have  had  lectures  pitched 
at  me  from  editorial  columns,  but  the  shining  tears  in  a  moth- 
er 's  eye  who  is  grateful  to  me  for  her  son 's  sake  will  out- 
weigh and  overtop  an  army  corps  of  such  advisors  as  have  criti- 
cised me  for  this  work.  And  there  is  appreciation  where  I  have 
had  least  reason  to  expect  it. 

' '  '  During  a  session  of  the  Georgia  legislature  some  years 
ago  I  was  invited  to  make  an  appeal  in  Atlanta  for  prohibition. 
The  hall  was  packed,  and  the  reporter  who  misrepresented  me 
in  next  morning's  paper  was  obliged  to  coil  himself  up  under 
the  little  table  before  me  to  find  a  place  for  himself  and  his 
pencil. 

121 


"  'Next  day  when  I  visited  the  state  capitol  to  hear  the  de- 
bate in  that  body,  a  member  offered  a  resolution  inviting  me  to 
a  seat  beside  the  speaker,  because  he  said :  '  I  was  a  woman  in 
whom  the  state  took  pride. '  ' ' 

' '  In  reference  to  the  changes  that  have  privileged  woman  to 
speak  in  public,  without  meeting  with  narrow  prejudices,  Mrs. 
Felton  remarked: 

"  'I  would  be  amused,  if  I  were  not  so  sympathetic,  to  wit- 
ness the  readiness  of  our  '  new  women '  in  these  latter  days  to 
address  public  meetings  and  conventions.  My  mind  goes  back 
to  the  time  when  it  meant  much  in  opposition  and  adverse  crit- 
icism to  make  the  venture. 

"  'I  recall  that  several  years  ago  when  the  Normal  and  In- 
dustrial school  was  still  in  embryo,  and  the  demagogue  was 
bleating  against  the  project  from  Dade  to  Chatham  county,  I 
felt  impelled  to  give  a  large  public  assemblage  in  my  county 
a  plain  talk  about  their  duty  to  their  daughters  as  well  as  to 
their  sons.  I  had  no  preparation  for  the  task  save  an  eager, 
earnest  longing  to  do  something  for  the  tens  of  thousands  of 
poor  girls  all  over  Georgia  who  had  no  schooling  save  the  miser- 
able little  makeshifts  of  common  schools  in  the  rural  districts. 
But  I  could  not  sit  still  and  listen  to  the  demagogue  's  plea  of 
the  state 's  poverty  while  the  coming  mothers  of  the  nation  were 
steeped  in  ignorance  because  of  their  own  poverty  when  the 
state  was  wasting  thousands  in  trifling  ways. 

"  'I  secured  time  for  a  hearing  and  I  am  still  at  a  loss  to 
understand  the  happy  effect  that  was  so  surprisingly  educed. 
When  a  young  lady  met  me  at  the  steps  of  the  platform,  and 
with  flowing  tears,  thanked  me  for  the  'first  word  she  had 
ever  heard  which  supposed  that  others  like  her  were  considered 
worthy  of  the  state 's  protection  and  care  for  higher  education, ' 
I  felt  almost  strong  enough  and  happy  enough  to  go  at  that 
time  to  the  governor  and  beg  him  to  put  the  idea  in  his  forth- 
coming message. 

"  'I  guess  the  idea  grew  apace,  for  when  the  legislature  met 
it  not  only  got  on  its  feet,  but  helped  elect  another  governor 
only  a  few  years  later  who  was  in  favor  of  it. 

"  '  I  might  consider  myself  an  '  ice  breaker '  in  this  Southern 
country  of  ours, ' '  concluded  Mrs.  Felton,  as  she  glanced  at  her 
watch  and  arose  to  start  for  the  train  to  Cartersville.  'I  must 
have  had  crude  but  novel  ideas  not  familiar  to  Southern  latitude, 
but  as  I  survey  the  'new  woman's'  field  of  action  at  the  close 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  I  find  that  I  have  been  'breaking 
ice '  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  and  although  I  was 
forced  to  stem  the  current  with  my  rude  bark,  I  find  the  tide  is 
floating  in  a  convoy  of  elegant  and  cultured  women  who  are  be- 
coming leaders  of  thought  and  public  opinion. ' ' 


122 


SOME  DISTINGUISHED  PEOPLE  I  HAVE  MET. 


During  the  six  years  term  of  Dr.  Felton's  active 
congressional  service  I  met  many  distinguished  and 
notable  people  in  the  city  of  Washington.  I  have 
shaken  hands  with  every  President  since  General 
Grant  went  into  the  White  House,  except  President 
Arthur.  Among  the  many  persons  I  remember  dis- 
tinctly was  Mrs.  Myra  Clark  Gaines,  who  was  born  in 
1805,  in  New  Orleans,  widow  of  General  Gaines  and 
daughter  of  rich  Daniel  Clarke.  Clarke  was  U.  S.  con- 
sul while  Louisiana  was  under  French  rule.  When 
he  died  he  left  vast  property  to  his  mother,  Mary 
Clarke.  Later  it  was  discovered  that  he  had  been  mar- 
ried to  a  French  woman  who  left  two  daughters.  The 
youngest,  Myra,  was  adopted  by  a  General  Davis,  in 
ignorance  of  her  paternity,  and  she  was  educated  in 
Philadelphia.  In  1832  she  married  a  Mr.  Whitney 
who  in  some  way  became  acquainted  with  the  facts  of 
her  birth.  A  will  was  also  discovered  where  Clarke 
acknowledged  Myra  as  his  legitimate  child.  After  a 
fierce  legal  battle  in  the  courts,  the  will  was  sustained 
and  her  legitimacy  thereby  sustained  and  in  1867  a 
decision  was  given  in  her  favor  to  property  valued  at 
$35,000,000.  Then  she  had  to  dispossess  the  people 
who  had  purchased  the  property. 

I  saw  her  a  number  of  times  during  the  70s  in 
Washington  City,  while  she  was  fighting  the  city  of 
New  Orleans  for  her  property  rights. 

I  had  the  story  of  her  eventful  life  from  her  own 
lips.  She  was  over  seventy  years  at  that  time.  In 
1890  New  Orleans  officials  compromised  and  settled 
with  her.  She  married  General  Gaines  in  1839  and 
died  in  1885,  at  the  age  of  80.  Her  struggle  to  clear 
her  name  from  illegitimacy  kept  her  nearly  all  her 
lifetime  in  the  harrassments  of  courts  and  the  facts 
are  surprising  beyond  anything  Dickens  ever  wrote  of 
Wards  in  chancery.  Mrs.  Gaines  was  a  small-sized 
woman,  active  and  vigorous  when  I  met  her  in  the 
old  National  Hotel  in  Washington,  then  nearly  eighty 
years  old.    She  had  snapping  black  eyes  and  flitted  in 

123 


and  out  like  a  woman  under  fifty.  Justice  Clifford 
of  the  Supreme  Court  gave  me  some  of  the  notable 
facts  in  her  legal  struggle  which  lasted  over  a  half 
century.  Mrs.  Gaines  had  indomitable  pluck  and 
never  despaired  of  success  in  her  law  suit. 


Justice  Clifford  and  Justice  Davis. 

Both  were  on  Supreme  Bench  when  I  first  met  them 
and  was  privileged  to  call  their  wives  my  friends. 
Both  were  very  large  men,  Judge  Davis  being  the  most 
corpulent  of  the  two. 

Judge  Clifford  was  from  Maine,  although  born  in 
New  Hampshire.  He  was  attorney  general  under 
President  Polk,  but  placed  on  Supreme  Bench  by 
Buchanan.  He  was  the  most  uncompromising  demo- 
crat I  ever  knew.  As  member  of  the  electoral  com- 
mission of  the  famous  7  to  8  which  seated  Mr.  Hayes, 
his  indignation  was  monumental  because  of  the  re- 
sult. While  on  his  way  to  Washington,  two  or  three 
years  later,  his  mind  gave  way  on  a  railroad  train,  and 
he  lived  for  months  as  a  little  child  followed  around 
by  his  nurse.  His  wife  was  an  elegant  lady,  gentle,  re- 
fined and  with  gracious  speech  and  manners. 

Judge  Davis  went  to  Bloomington,  Illinois,  when 
the  land  was  young,  his  law  fees  he  invested  in  real  es- 
tate, which  made  him  a  very  rich  man  in  a  few  years. 
When  the  electoral  commission  was  appointed  or  elect- 
ed by  authority  of  congress,  everybody  expected 
Judge  Davis  to  be  one  of  the  Supreme  Court  members, 
in  fact  the  fifteenth  man  with  the  scales  of  justice 
held  in  his  hand.  He  did  not  want  the  place.  He  said 
to  me  that  it  would  be  an  unthankful  position  because 
one  side  or  the  other  would  be  furious  at  the  results. 
I  spoke  to  him  on  the  morning  that  his  election  to  the 
United  States  Senate  appeared  in  the  newspapers, 
while  the  excitement  over  Hayes  and  Tilden  was  sim- 
mering hot.  He  said  he  would  accept  the  honor  given 
him  by  the  State  of  Illinois,  but  I  fancy  he  saw  an 
easy  way  out  of  an  unpleasant  dilemma  by  laying 
down  the  ermine  and  avoiding  the  8  to  7  difficulty.  It 
was  natural  that  Judge  Davis  should  be  timid  about 

124 


antagonizing  the  Republican  party.  Although  he  was 
essentially  the  great  Independent  of  that  era,  and  was 
looked  upon  from  the  standpoint  of  independentism  in 
making  up  the  electoral  commission,  yet  Mr.  Lincoln, 
his  personal  friend,  had  selected  Judge  Davis  for  the 
Supreme  Bench,  and  as  Mr.  Lincoln's  appointee  he 
felt  disinclined  personally  to  overthrow  or  antagonize 
the  Republican  party.  Judge  Davis  was  a  timid  man. 
He  could  have  made  a  ten-strike  for  the  presidency  at 
that  period  of  his  life.  If  he  had  sized  the  situation 
he  would  have  been  nominated  by  the  Democrats  and 
Independents,  indeed  by  everybody,  save  the  Radical 
Republicans  in  1880.  But  he  flinched  and  he  disap- 
pointed the  ardent  hopes  of  his  friends  because  he 
made  no  reputation  as  a  Senator  and  gave  up  what  he 
could  do  best,  namely  declare  the  intent  of  the  law  in 
a  dispute  between  litigants. 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  on  his  wedding  tour 
through  the  South.  He  wrote  me  of  the  train  on 
which  he  would  pass  through  Cartersville,  and  I  went 
as  far  as  Kingston  with  the  elderly  groom  and  his 
bride.  I  had  been  quite  well  acquainted  with  his  first 
wife,  also  a  splendid  woman,  of  rare  culture.  When 
she  died  in  1880  he  prepared  a  memorial  volume  of 
her  funeral  obsequies  and  sent  his  and  her  pictures 
along  with  it,  in  remembrance  of  our  friendship  cover- 
ing several  years  of  her  life. 

Judge  Davis  was  a  man  of  conscientious  motives. 
He  preferred  to  feel  right  rather  than  be  president. 
He  was  immense  in  physical  proportions.  His  valet 
often  told  of  the  number  of  years  in  which  Judge  Da- 
vis had  never  enjoyed  a  glimpse  of  his  own  feet.  His 
man  dressed  him  and  looked  after  his  general  comfort. 
Both  his  wives  were  small  women,  neither  weighing 
above  125,  and  Judge  Davis  would  have  tipped  the 
scales  at  300,  more  or  less. 

Speaking  of  the  Supreme  Court,  I  sat  frequently  in 
the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Representatives  that  fate- 
ful winter  of  1876  and  77,  when  debate  was  furious 
over  the  election  of  president,  and  Mr.  Hayes  could 
only  get  in  by  one  vote  if  several  Southern  states  were 
not  investigated,  and  Mr.  Tilden  would  certainly  be 

125 


president  by  a  handsome  majority  if  election  returns 
in  either  South  Carolina,  Louisiana  or  Florida  were 
overhauled.  It  was  a  crisis  such  a  one  as  had  never 
been  seen  in  this  Eepublic  since  guns  were  first  fired 
on  Fort  Sumter.  When  the  excitement  was  at  fever 
heat,  and  Mr.  Beebe,  of  New  York,  mounted  his  desk 
to  thunder  against  usurpation  and  fraudulent  counts, 
Chief  Justice  Morrison  Waite  sat  behind  me  in  the 
gallery,  watching  the  proceedings.  His  face  was  tense, 
his  features  hard  set  in  his  absorption.  I  understood 
very  well  that  the  Supreme  Court  would  be  the  last 
resort,  if  the  electoral  commission  failed.  I  also  fan- 
cied we  should  have  an  8  to  7  Supreme  Court  if  the  de- 
cision was  left  to  that  body,  and  Justice  Waite  was 
not  fond,  as  I  discovered  from  his  conversation  with 
others,  of  Mr.  Beebe  or  the  clamorous  democrats.  It 
was  far  from  funny  at  the  time,  but  it  is  amusing  now 
to  recall  the  bouncing  Beebe  leaping  on  the  top  of  the 
desks.  Mr.  Springer  chasing  up  and  down  the  aisles 
with  a  button-hole  bouquet  on  his  coat,  and  breathing 
out  fire  and  slaughter  if  the  count  was  not  agreeable 
to  justice  and  equity.  Mr.  Henry  Watterson  was  talk- 
ing about  his  100,000  unarmed  democrats  who  would 
silence  the  raging  waves  and  cry  out  ' '  Peace  be  still. ' ' 
Speaker  Randall  was  hammering  away  with  his  gavel 
to  preserve  order,  and  on  the  other  side,  Grandsire 
Hoar  and  warlike  Garfield,  and  the  plumed  knight 
from  Maine,  were  holding  their  respective  commands 
in  quiet  defense  and  reckoning  ways  and  means  by 
which  to  claim  everything  and  even  then,  with  every- 
thing claimed,  grabbed  and  held  by  main  force,  with 
an  iron  hand  on  the  army  and  navy,  with  the  Treas- 
ury open  to  their  call,  they  could  only  get  or  claim  or 
seize  the  presidency  by  one  single  vote  or  majority. 
And  genial  Mr.  Cox!  How  like  to  an  oasis  in  the 
desert,  was  this  dapper  little  man,  in  the  midst  of  this 
confusion  worse  confounded.  No  matter  who  got  an- 
gry or  who  became  sulky,  or  who  threatened  or  who 
cavorted,  Sunset  Cox  would  get  up  a  laugh  and  the 
whole  layout  felt  better.  He  and  his  admirable  wife 
were  among  my  first  Washington  acquaintances.  He 
was  candidate  for  Speaker  at  the  opening  of  the  44th 

126 


Congress,  and  ran  against  Mr.  Kerr  and  Mr.  Randall 
for  the  Democratic  nomination.  He  came  to  call  on 
me,  supposing  I  might  grease  a  cog  in  his  speakership 
wheel,  and  presented  me  with  his  then  new  book  of 
Winter  Sunbeams,  written  in  lower  Europe  while  he 
was  seeking  health.  The  letter,  with  the  book  I  keep 
as  a  relic,  always  unique  and  immortal  as  was  the  au- 
thor's fine  originality. 

The  last  letter  I  had  from  him  was  the  year  before 
he  died.  He  had  a  lecture  nearly  ready  for  Southern 
travel,  and  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Felton  for  some  specimens 
of  darkey  humor  to  be  ingrafted  in  his  lecture.  My 
spouse,  always  foreign  to  frivolous  speech,  could  not 
recall  any  incidents  that  he  felt  were  pertinent,  so  I, 
with  less  strenuous  mind,  furnished  several  and  Mr. 
Cox  wrote  me  he  would  "try  them  on,"  in  Richmond, 
Va.,  when  the  lecture  season  was  begun  and  he 
thought  they  would  fit  admirably.  I  recall  one  per- 
sonal experience  of  my  own  with  a  housemaid  that  you 
will  pardon  me  for  repeating,  and  which  Mr.  Cox 
accepted  with  manifest  glee  as  his  letter  stated.  In 
the  days  just  after  the  war,  nice  shoes  were  in  demand 
with  price  according  to  style,  etc.  I  indulged  myself, 
despite  a  lean  purse,  in  a  delightful  pair  of  well  fit- 
ting gaiters,  kid  tops,  with  side  buttons.  They  were 
high  day  Sunday  and  quite  restful  from  war  time 
leather  and  domestic  cobbling.  My  housemaid  was 
named  Harriett,  a  little  black,  slick  tongued  darkey 
girl,  who  had  simply  growed  like  Topsy,  without  any 
raising.  A  colored  revival  caught  Harriet  and  she 
professed  religion  or  come  through,  as  she  explained 
it  herself.  She  was  to  be  immersed  on  the  following 
Sunday  and  must  be  fitted  out  for  the  occasion.  Hav- 
ing as  usual  overdrawn  her  wages,  I  undertook  to 
contribute  to  the  baptismal  rig  that  would  be  neces- 
sary. Harriet  explained  that  she  must  have  shoes  to 
wear  down  in  the  water,  and  then  dry  shoes  for  the 
later  toilette  under  the  tent,  when  she  was  expected 
to  march  and  sing  with  the  purified  and  sanctified  to 
the  altar  of  her  church. 

I  bestowed  a  pair  of  half-worn,  low-cut  shoes  but 
Harriet  was  not  happy.     She  had  seen  the  buttoned 

127 


gaitors  in  the  dressing  closet,  and  she  hankered  after 
them.  Once  or  twice  she  asked  if  I  could  not  sell  them 
to  her,  and  wait  on  her  for  the  pay,  but  I  thought  my 
no  was  emphatic  and  dismissed  the  subject  from  my 
mind.  On  Sunday  all  the  colored  people  on  the  prem- 
ises went  to  the  baptism  and  the  cook  wandered  in  just 
before  sun  down.  ' '  Was  Harriet  baptized  ? "  I  asked 
her.    "Sure  she  was  Miss  Becky,"  was  the  reply. 

"Did  she  look  as  nice  as  the  rest  of  the  girls?"  I 
enquired. 

"Bless  your  soul,  ma'am  she  looked  nicer,  and  I  bet 
Sam  a  nickel  dat  she  is  a  wearing  your  bery  button 
gaitors  right  dis  minute  and  a  shouting  like  mad  all 
ober  dat  meeting  house.    She  done  gone  plum  crazy." 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  she  had  stolen  my  shoes 
to  wear  in  the  baptizing  procession  and  I  was  in  a 
state  of  suppressed  indignation  until  Harriet  crept  in 
on  Tuesday  afternoon,  for  she  was  physically  exhaust- 
ed with  her  Sunday  performances,  and  was  obliged 
to  sleep  them  off. 

When  rebuked  about  the  theft  of  my  shoes,  Harriet 
was  well  prepared  to  answer. 

"Now  don't  say  narry  nother  word  about  dem  shoes 
Miss  Becky,  I'se  gwine  to  work  em  out  wid  you.  You 
aint  gwine  to  lose  narry  cent  by  dis  nigger.  And  when 
ye  finks  about  it  right  straight  Miss  Becky,  I'm  sure 
you  didn't  want  yer  nigger  to  look  de  bery  worsts  in 
dat  baptising  crowd.  I  know  you  giv  me  dat  par  of 
de  low  quarters.  Yessum  you  did,  and  didn't  I  say 
I  was  much  obliged  to  you  Miss  Becky?  But  de  was 
wet  when  I  com  up  a  dripping  to  de  tent,  and  I  just 
couldn't  ware  'em  wid  dat  clean  white  skirt  what  you 
giv  me.  You  aint  gwine  to  lose  nuttin  tall  by  dem 
button  gaiters  Miss  Becky,  and  you  can't  possibly 
ware  em  any  more,  my  mistes  for  two  buttons  busted 
off,  while  I  was  a  trying  to  pull  em  on  my  wet  feet, 
down  at  de  tent.  You  never  did  see  sich  an  illmanner- 
ed  crowd  as  went  to  dat  baptising  in  all  your  life. 
Some  folks  never  did  hab  any  raising  no  how.  Aunt 
Dicey  say  I  was  de  best  looking  of  all  dem  folks  and 
I'm  sure  I  had  de  mos'  manners. 

128 


"I  tole  Polly  jest  now  when  she  was  cavortin  bout 
your  shoes,  dat  I  lay  she  wont  look  half  dat  well  when 
her  sins  is  all  washed  away  in  Jordan's  wave.  She 
is  no  count  nigger  herself,  only  fit  to  tell  lies  on  her 
own  color.  I  jest  could  tell  tales  about  your  kitchen, 
Miss  Becky,  dat  would  mak  you  sick,  shore  as  yer 
born.  Polly  hab  a  fambly  to  feed,  bet  y'r  life.  You 
jes  put  dem  shoes  down  on  my  count  Miss  Becky,  I's 
shore  good  to  pay  my  debts,  sometime  er  odder.  I'm 
gwine  to  bring  yer  fresh  bucket  water  from  de  well 
and  bring  yer  cold  drink,  Miss  Becky." 

But  I  have  wandered  far  away  from  Hon.  Sunset 
Cox.  After  Mr.  Kerr  died  Mr.  Cox  was  Mr.  Randall's 
only  opponent  to  succeed  him  in  the  speakership,  but 
Mr.  Cox  was  told  by  Tammany  to  go  to  the  National 
Democratic  Convention  and  fight  Mr.  Tilden  and  he 
had  to  go,  and  while  he  was  absent  as  directed  by 
Tammany,  certain  factions  resented  Tammany's  in- 
terference and  the  nomination  went  to  Mr.  Randall, 
who  was  an  all-round  speaker  and  a  great  friend  to  the 
South,  and  a  friend  to  Mr.  Tilden.  Those  were  nota- 
ble days  for  New  York  when  Mr.  Hewitt,  Mr.  Cox  and 
Hon.  Fernando  Wood  led  the  forces.  Mr.  Hewitt  was 
Mr.  Tilden 's  "right  bower"  in  the  presidential  cri- 
sis, and  if  Mr.  Tilden  had  been  as  courageous  as  his 
great  manager,  he  would  have  been  president.  The 
cry  went  forth  that  stocks  and  bonds  would  go  to  zero 
if  there  were  war  clouds  in  Washington,  and  like  the 
young  man  who  kept  all  the  commandments,  Mr.  Til- 
den was  a  rich  man  and  he  turned  sadly  away,  when 
the  time  came  for  nerve  and  pluck.  And  his  Pelton 
nephew  got  mixed  up  in  some  pecuniary  transactions 
with  certain  politicians  and  Mr.  Tilden  was  advertized 
as  the  uncle  of  his  nephew  in  the  public  prints. 

All  the  same  the  speakership  was  non  est  for  Mr. 
Cox  ever  afterward,  and  he  never  reached  the  Senate 
either  although  he  was  full  of  genuine  wit  and  extra- 
ordinary literary  talent,  he  somehow  found  his  light 
hidden  under  a  bushel  in  a  political  way,  as  he  ex- 
pressed it  for  the  world  guaged  him  simply  as  a  funny 
man,  and  a  funny  man  precluded  a  statesman. 

129 


Mr.  Wood  was  one  of  the  old  time  democratic  poli- 
ticians; stately,  dignified,  well  dressed,  with  no  non- 
sense but  a  great  deal  of  liberal  hospitality.  His  re- 
ceptions were  elegant  affairs,  the  swell  occasions  of  the 
winter. 

Mr.  Hewitt  was  a  man  of  dignity,  self-poise,  sub- 
stantial and  sterling  in  mind,  body  and  estate.  He 
has  always  been  conservative  and  having  married  a 
daughter  of  Hon.  Peter  Cooper,  the  great  philanthro- 
pist and  greenbacker,  it  might  have  been  expected 
that  Mr.  Hewitt  would  have  been  somewhat  a  copyist 
of  Mr.  Cooper's  ideas  on  finance  and  philanthropy, 
but  Mr.  Hewitt  is  sui  generis.  His  course  in  Congress 
was  Mr.  Hewitt's  own,  not  imitative.  He  was  the 
great  headlight  in  Mr.  Tilden's  campaign,  as  before 
said,  and  it  is  understood  he  risked  and  spent  a  cool 
hundred  thousand  of  his  own  money  to  help  him.  Af- 
ter the  electoral  commission  was  set  on  its  feet,  the 
excitement  was  intensified  if  such  a  thing  was  possi- 
ble. The  meetings  were  held  in  secret,  but  I  chanced 
to  be  sitting  in  the  House  gallery  one  afternoon  listen- 
ing to  the  debate  with  a  thin  house  and  idly  glancing 
down  at  the  members  below,  on  the  republican  side,  I 
saw  the  green  baize  doors  part  and  Mr.  Hoar  came  in. 
As  the  commission  was  known  to  be  in  session  and  Mr. 
Hoar  was  a  member  of  it,  I  knew  instantly  something 
was  up.  Florida  was  the  first  disputed  state  on  dock- 
et in  alphabetical  order,  and  whatever  was  done  with 
Florida  would  indicate  the  general  trend  of  affairs. 
Instantly  members  begun  to  gather  to  him.  His  satis- 
fied smile  was  ominous.  In  less  time  than  it  takes  to 
tell  it,  the  news  flew  over  the  building  that  the  com- 
mission refused  by  a  vote  of  8  to  7  to  go  behind  the 
returns  in  Florida,  and  it  would  not  be  counted  for 
Mr.  Tilden.  Mr.  Hoar  was  anxious  apparently  to  tell 
it.  His  colleagues  breathed  freer.  The  democrats 
were  stifling  with  suppressed  indignation,  but  the 
deed  was  virtually  done,  and  the  rest  of  the  count  was 
easy  enough.  The  democrats  fastened  the  manacles  on 
their  own  hands  by  the  commission.  They  could  not 
repudiate  a  machine,  manufactured  in  a  democratic 
House  by  a  democratic  majority.    Some  malcontents 

130 


raised  a  racket  in  the  House  and  in  the  newspapers. 
Some  of  the  few  statements  were  even  insulting  to 
democrats,  but  Mr.  Tilden  dropped  his  candy  when  he 
accepted  the  commission  idea,  and  Mr.  Hayes'  lieuten- 
ants backed  by  General  Grant's  threat  to  call  out  the 
military,  won  the  fight,  with  hands  down.  Some  were 
in  favor  of  butting  heads  against  a  stone  wall,  but  the 
commercial  politicians  proceeded  instanter  to  get  on 
the  good  side  of  Mr.  Hayes,  and  also  proceeded  to 
cream  the  milk  by  political  trades  in  Southern  lati- 
tudes. I  had  been  admitted  to  the  House  gallery  by 
ticket  for  weeks  upon  weeks  before  the  inauguration. 
If  a  ticket  was  not  at  hand  Speaker  Randall  sent  a 
note  to  doorkeepers  for  me,  and  I  went  early  and  sat 
late  to  watch  the  proceedings,  but  it  was  more  diffi- 
cult to  obtain  an  entrance  on  Inauguration  day  to  the 
Senate  chamber,  where  the  preliminary  exercises  were 
held. 

The  day  was  raw  and  cold,  but  we  swallowed  a  hasty 
breakfast  and  started  before  8  o'clock  to  the  Capitol 
to  get  a  seat.  As  I  sat  in  the  Senate  gallery,  Mrs. 
Hayes  and  some  of  her  friends  entered  from  the  op- 
posite side  and  I  fell  in  love  with  her  frank,  open, 
honest  and  to  me,  beautiful,  face  at  first  sight.  I  felt 
the  country  was  safe  so  far  as  she  was  concerned. 
From  first  to  last  she  wore  well,  always  the  same,  with- 
out frills  or  furbelows  of  affectation  or  cant.  She  was 
the  good  wife  and  good  mother  and  a  generous  hearted 
woman  in  every  relation  of  life.  Of  course  it  was  a 
proud  day  for  her  when  her  husband  entered  the 
chamber,  but  she  was  neither  haughty  or  flustered, 
and  her  fine  face  lingers  with  me  still  as  I  drop  this 
little  tribute  in  memory  of  her  excellence. 

The  army  and  navy  officers  were  in  full  uniform, 
the  Supreme  Court  wore  the  silk  gowns,  the  ambassa- 
dors wore  their  native  costume,  and  the  young  Grand 
Duke  Alexis  of  Russia  was  there  in  plain  military  at- 
tire. 

General  Grant  and  Mr.  Hayes  would  have  made  a 
good  team  in  point  of  girth  and  statue,  built  on  the 
pony  order,  but  about  the  same  height  and  ten  pounds 
would  have  covered  the  difference  in  weight  between 

131 


the  two,  who  sat  facing  the  audience  on  a  sofa  in  front 
of  the  clerk's  desk,  until  the  incoming  new  senators 
were  sworn  in  with  due  attention  to  red  tape  and  offi- 
cial dignity. 

When  the  crowd  started  to  the  front  of  the  Capitol 
we  put  out  for  the  hotel  to  glimpse  the  procession 
which  we  had  omitted  to  get  a  seat  in  the  senate.  The 
jam  on  the  avenue  was  terrific.  The  sidewalks  were 
packed  from  walls  to  gutter.  Pickpockets  were  active, 
policemen's  clubs  went  whack,  whack  over  the  heads 
of  the  disorderly.  Twice  we  were  unable  to  step  along, 
the  jam  of  people  was  so  dense ;  but  at  last  we  made 
our  way  into  the  old  National  Hotel  and  had  a  re- 
served window  on  the  front  to  watch  the  crowd.  It 
was  a  sight  worth  seeing  and  despite  the  fact  that 
more  than  one  half  the  people  had  voted  for  Mr.  Til- 
den,  the  crowd  was  orderly  and  conservative.  The 
scene  after  dark  was  thrilling.  It  seemed  as  if  mil- 
lions of  people  were  on  the  Avenue  in  solid  mass,  and 
the  fireworks  were  gorgeous.  There  were  a  great  many 
people  with  anxious  hearts  nevertheless.  A  spark  may 
kindle  a  great  conflagration,  and  everybody  felt  bet- 
ter when  things  quieted  down,  you  may  be  sure.  Mr. 
Hayes  made  us  a  good  president  and  he  felt  kindly 
to  the  South  and  many  Southern  men.  He  made  no 
pretensions  to  brilliancy  of  any  sort,  but  he  was  a 
careful  president  and  cautious  person  who  would  do 
no  harm,  if  he  could  do  no  good.  He  came  to  Geor- 
gia when  he  was  chairman  of  the  National  Society  of 
Charities  and  Corrections,  several  years  after  he  be- 
came ex-President  and  was  as  cordial  and  simple  in 
his  manners  as  any  plain,  intelligent  citizen.  Prosper- 
ity did  not  elate  him  nor  did  private  life  make  him 
unhappy.  The  country  might  have  gone  much  further 
and  fared  much  worse,  because  he  was  a  safe  man.  I 
saw  so  much  more  of  Mr.  Hayes  than  General  Grant 
that  I  was  partial  to  the  former,  but  the  military  lead- 
er will  be  a  headlight  in  history  while  Rutherford  B. 
Hayes  will  be  forgotten.  So  much  more  of  glory  halos 
the  military  captains  rather  than  the  captains  in  poli- 
tics, although  President  Hayes  was  himself  a  Briga- 
dier General  in  Federal  army.     Mrs.  Grant  had  all 

13? 


opportunities  to  be  spoiled  by  attentions  to  White 
House  residents,  because  the  toady  and  the  sychophant 
nourished  like  a  green  bay  tree  in  the  days  immediate- 
ly succeeding  the  war,  but  she  was  everywhere  recog- 
nized as  a  good  wife  and  mother.  There  was  a  cast  in 
one  eye,  or  maybe  both  that  made  her  eyes  look  ob- 
lique or  crossed,  but  her  fine  clothes  and  fine  position 
and  hospitable  entertainments  were  enough  to  make 
her  a  very  popular  hostess  during  their  eight  years' 
term.  She  enjoyed  her  presidential  life  and  good  na- 
turedly  said  so,  on  every  occasion,  and  it  was  a  gala 
scene  on  her  reception  days,  when  the  White  House 
was  thronged  with  callers,  and  you  had  to  stand  in 
line  and  be  crowded  along  to  the  place  where  the  re- 
ceiving party  stood,  and  your  name  was  called  out 
and  you  begun  to  shake  hands  with  the  ladies  who 
stood  near  Mrs.  Grant.  It  was  an  olla  podrida  gath- 
ering, to  be  sure. 

Fred  Douglass  and  his  white  wife  were  often  on 
hand  and  the  foreign  element  rejoiced  greatly  in  the 
show,  display,  music  and  profusion  of  flowers. 

On  the  night  before  the  Inauguration  of  General 
Garfield,  President  and  Mrs.  Hayes  gave  a  dinner 
party  to  the  Cabinet,  who  would  go  out  of  office  with 
the  new  administration.  The  Marine  band  in  full  uni- 
form played  during  the  evening.  A  general  reception 
was  held  after  the  dinner.  Just  before  the  musicians 
put  up  their  instruments,  they  asked  that  Mrs.  Hayes 
make  a  selection  as  a  good  bye  to  their  pleasurable 
work  for  her.  When  the  message  came  she  kindly 
took  me  by  the  arm  and  we  stood  nearby  while  the 
musicians  played  "Full  of  Joy."  At  certain  stops 
they  would  each  sing  out  "full  of  joy,"  and  then  the 
band  would  fill  the  whole  place  with  its  flood  of  har- 
mony. ' '  Thank  you  ever  so  much, ' '  said  Mrs.  Hayes. 
' '  You  have  given  me  untold  pleasure  many  times  dur- 
ing the  last  four  years,  and  I  am  glad  to  have  this 
opportunity  to  thank  you  in  person."  When  the  mu- 
sicians retired  she  said  to  me  "These  have  been  four 
very  happy  years  to  me,  and  I  have  enjoyed  them 
greatly. ' ' 

133 


Mr.  Charles  Foster  occupied  the  same  place  in  the 
Hayes  administration  that  Mr.  Hanna  did  under  Pres- 
ident McKinley,  or  Mr.  Blaine  with  Mr.  Garfield,  and 
Mr.  Foster  made  scores  of  friends  by  his  gracious, 
jovial  manners.  Mr.  Blaine  was  never  so  popular,  at 
least  with  me,  but  I  shall  never  forget  a  reception  at 
Mr.  Blaine's  fine  home  where  Miss  Dodge,  known  to 
literature  as  Gail  Hamilton,  received  with  Mrs. 
Blaine,  who  was  her  cousin.  I  was  very  fond  of  Miss 
Dodge's  writings  and  with  true  North  Georgia  blunt- 
ness  I  told  her  all  about  this  predilection  in  favor  of 
her  efforts.  We  had  a  lively  little  chat,  at  the  end  of 
a  grand  piano  in  one  of  the  drawing  rooms,  and  her 
homely  face  remains  in  memory,  along  with  the  hearty 
enjoyment  of  that  cold  February  day  when  the  mer- 
cury was  below  zero  on  the  outside.  Her  bright  mind 
and  ready  wit,  must  have  given  rare  enjoyment  to 
Mr.  Blaine,  and  some  critics  have  said  that  she  helped 
no  little  when  the  great  man  aimed  to  thrill  the  North- 
ern heart  with  a  great  big  speech  in  reply  to  some- 
body. 

Mr.  Conkling's  speeches  were  fine,  and  his  method 
was  a  strong  case  of  treating  his  enemies  with  con- 
tempt when  he  should  have  chased  them  with  brick- 
bats. 

I  chanced  to  be  sitting  in  the  Senate  gallery  on  the 
evening  before  a  session  of  Congress  adjourned,  and 
the  night  before  when  it  was  reported  in  the  newspa- 
pers that  Mrs.  Sprague  and  Mr.  Conkling  passed  notes 
and  sly  glances  from  gallery  to  the  floor,  and  vice 
versa. 

The  gallery  was  crowded  and  some  rapid  young 
folks  were  making  more  noise  than  custom  or  polite- 
ness allowed.  Sitting  by  Mrs.  Sprague  was  Mrs.  Sen- 
ator Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania,  then  a  bride  of  a  few 
months.  Mrs.  Cameron  was  annoyed  by  the  rude  con- 
duct of  the  young  people,  and  she  beckoned  to  her  hus- 
band from  the  gallery  to  come  up  to  her.  He  was 
near  Senator  Conkling  and  both  turned  and  looked  up 
gallerywise.  Mrs.  Cameron  wrote  a  note  and  sent  it 
down  by  a  messenger,  and  Don  Cameron  was  glad  of  a 
chance  to  sit  beside  his  pretty  new  wife,  who  was  a 

134 


niece  of  the  Shermans.  Not  once  did  Mrs.  Sprague 
move  out  of  her  seat,  nor  did  she  send  a  note  or  do 
anything  else  but  talk  a  little  to  Senator  Cameron 
when  he  came  up  to  them.  I  was  an  eye  witness  to  all 
of  it,  could  have  easily  laid  my  hand  on  Mrs.  Spra- 
gue 's  shoulders,  because  I  was  immediately  in  her 
rear.  She  had  her  two  daughters  with  her,  and  her 
conduct  that  evening,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  was  abso- 
lutely without  flaw.  Now  if  I  had  been  in  Senator 
Conkling's  place,  I'd  have  tracked  that  scandal  mon- 
ger to  the  jumping  off  place  before  it  should  have  been 
passed  with  dignified  contempt.  It  was  atrocious  that 
this  untrue  thing  should  have  been  wired  across  the 
continent,  and  I  think  it  was  a  mistake  not  to  hurl 
brickbats,  in  the  sense  of  exposing  such  a  miserable 
fake  story.  It  was  none  of  my  business  to  volunteer 
as  a  witness,  as  1  was  a  stranger  to  all  parties,  but  I 
have  always  felt  that  somebody  should  have  helped 
that  woman,  who,  being  forced  to  leave  a  drunken,  un- 
kind husband,  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  her  young 
daughters,  had  therefore  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  pub- 
lic criticism  forever  afterward.  I  have  always  al- 
lowed a  grain  of  salt  to  such  published  scandals,  since 
that  time.  The  average  mind  is  delighted  to  roll  an 
unsavory  bit  like  this  under  the  tongue  and  the  higher 
the  target,  the  oftener  the  poisoned  arrows  fly  at  it. 

I  sat  several  days  in  the  Senate  chamber  listening  to 
the  impeachment  proceedings  against  Secretary  Bel- 
knap. To  recall  this  affair  sounds  like  ancient  history, 
but  there  was  no  more  popular  woman  in  Washington 
than  the  secretary's  handsome  wife,  before  the  post- 
tradership  scandals  came  to  light. 

The  callers  on  New  Year's  day,  a  custom  observed 
much  more  then  than  latterly,  were  loud  in  their 
praise  of  Mrs.  Belknap's  charming  grace  and  man- 
ners. But  the  exposure  came,  alas,  and  the  Belknap 
home  was  closed  for  all  time  in  the  Capitol  City. 

I  recall  a  grand  reception  at  Sir  Edward  Thorn- 
ton's, the  British  Minister,  whose  elegant  wife  and 
daughters  were  lovely  in  their  hospitality  to  those 
who  were  also  cordial  and  interested  in  visiting  the 
legation.     It  was  the  event  of  the  season,  for  guests 

135 


came  from  New  York,  Philadelphia,  everywhere  in 
that  latitude.  Diamonds,  point  lace  and  silk  velvet, 
style  and  ceremony  prevailed.  The  English  servants 
in  livery  were  at  the  carriage  when  you  alighted  and 
English  maids  were  at  your  service  until  you  were  in- 
troduced to  the  host  and  hostess.  A  full-length  pic- 
ture of  Queen  Victoria  in  royal  robes,  faced  the  en- 
trance, placed  above  the  first  landing  on  the  grand 
staircase.  Tea  was  served  continuously  for  the  guests, 
poured  from  ancestral  silver  teakettles  and  handed  by 
maids  wearing  caps  after  the  English  fashion.  Costly 
crimson  silk  hangings  lined  the  walls  of  the  large 
drawing  room,  and  a  full  band  played  for  the  danc- 
ers. It  was  a  fairy  scene,  and  fully  repaid  one  for 
their  trouble  in  getting  there. 

Leaving  my  party  card  after  the  reception,  I  was 
again  surprised  to  have  Lady  Thornton  and  her 
daughters  make  me  a  formal  visit  at  my  hotel,  but  it 
served  to  convince  me  that  a  lady  can  be  an  unsophis- 
ticated, sweet-spirited  lady  whether  she  lives  in  a 
palace  or  in  a  little  cottage. 

I  had  a  sickly  little  boy  to  occupy  my  hands  and 
heart,  and  my  society  visits  were  strictly  limited,  but 
it  was  both  comical  and  entertaining  to  meet  the  Japs 
and  Turks  at  Supreme  Court  receptions,  always  given 
at  that  time,  by  the  Judges'  wives  on  Monday  after- 
noons. The  Japanese  were  always  alert.  No  matter 
where  you  went  you  would  find  these  natty  little  peo- 
ple, dressed  like  Europeans  and  looking  out  for  nov- 
elties. I  recall  an  experience  in  the  diplomatic  gal- 
lery of  the  House  to  which  I  had  been  admitted  by  the 
thoughtful  kindness  of  Speaker  Randall.  The  only 
available  seat  was  one  on  the  carpeted  steps  going 
down  from  the  door,  near  the  bottom,  not  exceeding 
two  feet  in  length  and  less  in  width.  My  street  dress 
for  the  winter  had  rows  of  silk  buttons  down  the  back 
as  well  as  front,  with  silk  cord  laced  across.  When  the 
excitement  increased  in  the  hall  there  was  some  hand 
clapping  all  about  me.  Finding  something  playing 
tattoo  on  my  spine,  I  turned  about  a  find  a  little 
Japanese  attache  working  his  little  feet  industriously, 
and  as  I  did  not  speak  his  language  I  could  only  look 

136 


imploringly  and  point  to  my  back.  As  he  was  in  his 
appointed  place,  and  I  was  perhaps  an  intruder  in 
the  diplomatic  gallery,  I  wisely  decided  to  wear  fewer 
buttons  next  day  and  say  nothing.  This  brings  to 
mind  also  my  seat  on  the  immense  official  platform 
when  Chicago  welcomed  the  world  during  its  dedica- 
tory exercises  in  1892,  where  my  crowded  feet  were 
almost  in  proximity  to  the  neck  of  the  Chinese  Min- 
ister Plenipotentiary,  on  that  occasion,  and  I  had 
splendid  opportunity  to  inquire  why  the  Chinese  have 
such  great,  immense,  bare  necks,  and  are  so  spaci- 
ously broad  from  ear  to  ear.  That  Chicago  gathering 
of  notables  was  truly  a  show  worth  looking  at.  The 
observation  stand  was  erected  for  national  celebrities 
on  the  post  office  building,  overlooking  a  main  street, 
and  from  which  Vice-President  Morton  reviewed  the 
entire  civic  and  military  procession.  The  temporary 
structure  was  simply  piled  high  with  dignitaries  and 
notables.  My  badge  admitted  me  along  with  my  ticket 
of  invitation,  but  I  have  often  been  amused  to  think 
that  perhaps  I  did  not  belong  there  among  that  solid 
mass  of  congressmen,  governors,  foreign  ministers,  cab- 
inet officers,  admirals,  generals  and  such  like,  but  I  did 
see  the  crowd  and  if  anybody  thought  I  did  not  belong 
there  with  my  lady  companion  they  were  too  polite  to 
say  so.  I  never  saw  such  a  congregated  mass  of  peo- 
ple, even  in  Chicago,  save  the  day  when  Mayor  Carter 
Harrison  was  convoyed  to  his  long  home  after  his 
assassination. 

Just  a  few  days  before  he  was  murdered  in  his  own 
house,  he  attended  an  informal  luncheon  in  the  Wo- 
man's Building.  As  he  was  a  popular  mayor  and 
jolly  good  fellow,  he  was  surrounded  by  the  ladies 
from  the  states  and  territories,  to  be  introduced  and 
welcomed. 

When  my  name  was  called,  with  clever  gallantry, 
he  insisted  that  I  should  take  his  arm  and  show  him 
some  of  the  wonders  of  the  building,  all  the  time  ask- 
ing about  Dr.  Felton  and  recalling  the  funny  things 
that  happened  to  himself  in  the  44th  Congress,  when 
they  were  colleagues  on  some  committee.  Inside  of 
a  week  I  saw  Chicago  pay  him  funeral  honors  of  which 

137 


any  citizen  or  ruler  might  be  well  proud.  If  public 
grief  ever  can  be  exploited  that  was  one  time  when  a 
big  city  prostrated  itself  in  mourning  and  civic  la- 
mentation. 

In  Chicago  you  might  see  dukes  and  duchesses, 
lords  and  ladies,  some  princesses,  etc.,  and  to  plebian 
eyes,  they  look  amazingly  like  other  well-dressed  peo- 
ple abroad  on  a  visit.  These  foreign  royalties  make 
a  specialty  of  languages,  and  one  of  the  very  neatest 
and  most  taking  papers  that  were  read  before  the 
crowd  in  the  Woman's  Building  on  opening  day  was 
written  and  read  by  a  Russian  princess  in  fine,  cor- 
rect English. 

Mrs.  Potter  Palmer  gave  a  magnificent  reception 
to  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Veragua,  the  lineal  des- 
cendants of  the  family  of  Christopher  Columbus,  and 
the  duchess,  with  her  grown  daughter,  was  gowned  in 
particularly  fine  clothes,  but  as  her  grace  did  not 
speak  English,  nor  could  I  speak  Spanish  we  shook 
hands  and  smiled.  The  smile  was  cosmopolitan,  but 
all  the  same  I  felt  sorry  I  could  not  tell  her  I  was 
glad  to  see  her  in  her  native  tongue.  I  was  at  home 
when  the  Princess  Eulalie  came  over  to  represent 
Spain,  as  young  King  Alphonso's  aunt,  his  father's 
sister.  The  funny  things  that  they  told  me  about 
which  happened  during  her  visit,  I  did  not  see  but 
also  read  about  in  the  newspapers. 

The  princess  would  not  have  been  quite  so  easy  and 
airish,  I  guess,  if  she  could  have  foreseen  the  fate  of 
Cuba,  Porto  Rico  and  the  Philippines.  This  govern- 
ment paid  all  her  expenses  at  an  enormous  price  per 
diem,  while  she  sojourned  in  Chicago,  so  she  got  even 
on  one  line  if  Spain  failed  on  others.  Doubtless  she 
couldn't  help  being  airish  and  arrogant,  but  we  should 
go  slow  on  toadyism,  now  and  hereafter,  in  my  opin- 
ion, which  however  stands  for  no  more  than  it  amounts 
to  I  hasten  to  say. 

I  did  not  live  in  the  days  of  Revolution,  of  Whig  and 
Tory,  but  quite  near  enough  to  hear  old  people  tell 
of  what  this  country  endured  to  get  rid  of  a  monarch- 
ial  government,  and  I'll  not  compromise  with  royalty 
so  long  as  the  "pomp  and  state  at  a  palace  gate  are 

138 


what  my  spirit  was  taught  to  hate, ' '  and  I  'd  think  my 
daughter  (if  I  only  had  one  to  brag  about)  had  as 
many  chances  for  domestic  happiness  with  an  honest- 
hearted,  clean-souled  poor  American  boy  as  with  ef- 
fete royalty  in  foreign  lands,  no  matter  how  long  the 
rent  roll  or  the  number  of  names  recorded  with  the 
title. 

I  rode  in  the  procession  which  filed  through  the 
streets  of  Chicago  on  dedication  day,  commemorative 
of  the  landing  of  Columbus  in  the  year  1492,  four 
hundred  years  after  America  was  discovered.  We 
started  at  7.50  A.  M.  and  the  cortege  was  so  long  and 
the  retinue  so  immense,  the  crowd  so  great,  and  the 
notables  so  numerous,  that  my  watch  said  2  P.  M.  be- 
fore we  alighted  near  the  immense  Mechanic  Arts 
building,  which  was  said  to  cover  forty  acres  of 
ground.  I  sat  considerably  in  the  rear  of  the  chosen 
speakers,  Messrs.  "Watterson  and  Depew,  and  of  one 
speech  I  collected  a  few  words,  of  the  other  not  one. 

Somebody  ate  up  all  the  luncheon  and  when  I  ar- 
rived after  dark  at  my  boarding  house  four  and  a  half 
miles  from  Jackson  Park,  I  was  hungry,  tired,  yes 
worn  out,  and  as  I  had  eaten  a  bit  of  toast  and  drank 
a  coup  of  tea  about  six  in  the  morning,  and  hadn't  a 
mite  of  supper  or  drink  until  8  P.  M,,  or  afterwards, 
I  shall  always  indulge  the  notion  that  royalty  have 
hard  times  of  it  at  coronations  and  on  state  occasions. 
Those  that  dance  will  pay  the  piper  and  the  greatest 
variety  or  recreation  that  came  to  me  that  tiresome 
day  was  when  a  Georgia  boy  belonging  to  the  army 
rode  up  to  our  carriage,  standing  still,  until  it  could 
move  on,  and  called  me  by  name.  He  was  with  his 
command  from  a  far-off  state,  but  as  water  seeks  a  lev- 
el, two  plain  Georgia  folks  met  many  hundred  miles 
from  home  and  were  glad  to  shake  hands  and  claim 
acquaintance.  A  touch  of  nature  makes  the  world 
akin,  and  we  were  mutually  delighted  to  be  what  we 
were,  without  trying  to  be  anybody  greater  or  louder. 

It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  see  and  become  ac- 
quainted with  Mrs.  Potter  Palmer,  the  Lady  Presi- 
dent of  the  Chicago  Exposition.  She  was  so  hand- 
some, so  tactful,  so  gracious  in  her  manners,  with 

139 


infinite  charm  that  she  was  an  ideal  lady  in  any  as- 
semblage where  she  might  choose  to  appear. 

She  was  remarkable  in  very  many  respects,  and  to 
the  day  of  her  death  she  commanded  admiration,  es- 
teem and  profound  affection  from  all  who  knew  her 
best.  I  have  very  lately  read  a  contribution  to  the 
columns  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  written  by  her 
niece,  daughter  of  Mrs.  Palmer's  only  sister,  Miss 
Grant. 

I  saw  Miss  Grant  occasionally  during  the  Chicago 
Exposition,  but  she  was  a  girl  in  her  early  teens. 

She  married  a  Russian  Prince  and  was  lately  in 
Russia,  during  the  time  of  the  Czar's  alliance  with 
the  opponents  of  the  Kaiser  and  after  the  Czar  was 
dethroned  and  the  mountain  of  disaster  fell  on  the 
Russian  Empire. 

The  letters  to  the  Post,  written  by  Princess  Can- 
tacuzene,  nee  Julia  Grant,  were  very  interesting, 
graphic,  and  of  decided  literary  talent.  Somehow  I 
could  discern  a  good  deal  of  Mrs.  Palmer  in  what  I 
read  and  the  influence  she  had  in  shaping  the  thoughts 
and  manners  of  her  titled  niece. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  at  one  time  to  see  General 
Toombs  and  Hon.  A.  H.  Stephens  together  on  several 
occasions  when  they  were  in  rare  good  humor,  and  full 
of  reminiscent  talk. 

Mr.  Stephens  once  said  to  me  that  he  believed  Gen- 
eral Toombs  was  the  greatest  man  he  ever  knew,  the 
all-round  man,  with  his  rare  gifts  of  oratory  and  poli- 
tical courage,  emphasizing  the  fact  of  his  magnificent 
appearance  and  manly  beauty,  when  in  his  prime. 

I  take  pleasure,  too,  in  remembering  a  visit  that 
Judge  Hiram  "Warner  made  to  Washington  City, 
where  he  called  on  us,  and  kindly  told  me  about  how 
he  was  raided  after  the  Civil  War  and  actually  hung 
for  a  short  time  by  the  robbers  who  were  trying  to 
extort  money  and  valuables  in  his  home.  He  was  a 
great  man,  a  Georgia  jurist  in  whom  the  state  can  in- 
dulge in  pride.  Northern  born,  the  South  had  no  truer 
public  servant  within  its  borders,  than  Judge  Hiram 
Warner. 

140 


I  am  satisfied  that  history  will  write  down  Hon. 
Jos.  E.  Brown  as  one  of  our  great  Georgia  governors. 
While  he  seemed  always  to  get  on  the  other  side  of 
politics  from  us,  he  was  a  born  leader  of  men,  and  for 
a  third  of  a  century  he  managed  Georgia  politics.  And 
I  am  one  who  believes  his  wife  had  a  great  deal  to  do 
with  his  success  in  life.  Not  many  people  know  that 
she  read  to  him  constantly  in  his  leisure  moments,  and 
when  he  was  first  made  Governor,  and  he  spent  some 
midsummer  weeks  at  Rowland's  Springs,  a  few  miles 
from  our  home,  I  have  occasionally  met  them  going  to 
and  from  town  and  saw  her  reading  the  newspapers  to 
him  as  they  passed  me.  In  his  last  days  when  he  was 
entirely  unable  to  discern  a  letter  in  a  newspaper,  I 
called  to  pay  my  respects,  and  she  was  even  then  read- 
ing aloud  to  cheer  him  in  his  affliction.  She  had 
a  famous  supply  of  good  common  sense,  without  any 
fribbles  of  airs  or  pretensions,  and  I  had  a  profound 
respect  for  such  valuable  acquirements. 


"MRS.   FELTON'S    MESSAGE   TO  THE  20TH   CENTURY. 
APRIL  24,  1901. 

It  Is  a  Shame  That  We  Take  More  Pains  in  Breeding  Cat- 
tle Than  in  Mating  Human  Beings — Men  Go  a  Thou- 
sand Miles  to  Get  the  Best  Grafts  for  Orchards,  But 
They  Allow  the  Veriest  Scrubs  to  be  Grafted  on  the 
Family  Tree — Breeding  in  and  in  Among  New  Hamp- 
shire Towns   Made  an   Idiot  in    Every  Family. 


(Beported  by  W.  G.  Cooper,  for  Atlanta  Journal.) 
"This  title  is  not  an  extravagant  one.  The  subject  of  the 
communication  is  as  broad  as  humanity  and  as  deep  as  human 
soul.  A  gifted  lady,  who  long  ago  passed  through  motherhood, 
the  sublimest  of  human  tragedy,  its  holiest  ministry  and  its 
noblest  sacrifice,  speaks  de  profnndis  to  her  kind.  The  message 
is  to  the  twentieth  century,  because  it  is  the  business  of  that  era 
to  right  the  wrongs  of  the  past. 

"At  a  recent  meeting  of  the  Atlanta  Woman's  club  Mrs.  Fel- 
ton  delivered  the  following  address,  which  was  listened  to  with 
breathless  attention,  and  at  its  conclusion  a  rising  vote  of 
thanks  expressed  the  feelings  of  the  audience.  It  is  an  address 
that  should  be  read  by  every  man  and  woman  in  the  world: 


"Some  of  the  Influences  Which  Affect  Life  and  Character. 

"  'Women  are  destined  in   this  country,'  says  Mrs.   Henro- 
tin,  '  to  keep  alive  ideality. '    A  distinguished  artist  from  abroad 

141 


paid  American  women  the  compliment  of  also  saying  they  had 
the  courage  of  their  convictions,  that  'being  pledged  to  the 
spiritual  side  of  life,  any  cause  they  decide  to  champion  is 
bound  to  succeed. '  This  is  high  praise,  due  to  their  sincerity 
and  ability.  The  history  of  women  's  clubs  in  America  demon- 
strates the  attractiveness  of  the  movement.  There  is  a  great 
social  force  in  your  organizations — a  force  united  to  religious 
and  purely  reform  associations  in  a  measure — nevertheless  a 
force  distinct  from  either  in  plan — while  the  purpose  tends  to 
the  same  result,  namely,  the  making  of  better  men  and  wo- 
men; the  improvement  of  the  home,  and  the  betterment  of  so- 
ciety. Feeling  my  own  great  indebtedness  to  the  courage  as 
well  as  the  sincerity  and  ability  of  great  leaders  of  thought 
among  women,  I  ventured  to  bring  to  your  attention  today, 
the  consideration  of  some  of  the  influences  which  affect  life  and 
character,  and  in  the  beginning,  I  disclaim  all  desire  to  appear 
as  a  scientist,  or  even  an  instructor  in  matters  that  will  be 
presented.  I  bring  their  importance  only  that  thought  may  be 
arrested,  and  that  we  may  confer  together  for  mutual  benefit 
and  progress  and  to  emphasize  their  power.  When  the  census 
returns  in  the  last  decade  were  tabulated,  it  was  stated  that 
more  than  700,000  defective  persons  were  discovered  in  the 
United  States.  Think  of  it !  Seven  hundred  thousand,  who  were 
maimed,  deformed  in  mind  and  body,  the  imbecile,  the  insane, 
the  blind,  the  deaf  and  dumb,  the  epileptic,  and  otherwise  de- 
formed men,  women  and  children.  The  majority  came  into 
the  world  thus  maimed — injured — and  can  I  dare  to  say  it, 
maltreated  by  their  progenitors.  You  understand  they  had  no 
volition  as  to  this  coming;  they  gave  no  consent  as  to  this 
forced  appearance.  Their  disfigured  human  lives  was  not  the 
existence  they  would  have  chosen.  They  were  born,  forced  into 
the  struggle,  and  in  nearly  all  the  cases,  no  relief  could  be 
possible  until  they  were  removed  by  death  out  of  this  deform- 
ity and  wretchedness. 

"The  standing  army  of  the  United  States  consisted  of  25,- 

000  men  before  the  Spanish-American  war.  It  was  a  great 
body  of  men,  whether  considered  as  to  numbers,  to  expense  or 
mobilization;  yet  here  in  our  midst,  is  an  army  of  700,000, 
twenty-eight  times  greater,  to  be  cared  for,  supported  and  en- 
dured.    Many  of  these  unfortunates  were  hopelessly  imbecile. 

1  saw  a  number  of  children  who  were  born  without  mind,  in  the 
deaf  and  dumb  asylum  of  the  state,  twenty  odd  years  ago. 
They  had  no  mental  capacity.  They  were  blank  except  to  ani- 
mal appetite  and  passion  If  there  is  anything  under  the  shin- 
ing sun,  we  as  mothers  should  be  thankful  for,  it  is  reason  and 
mental  health  in  ourselves  and  our  children  To  have  human 
birth  and  to  be  devoid  of  reason  is  simply  horrible  to  contem- 
plate. I  asked  but  few  questions  concerning  these  blighted 
children,  but  the  history  of  similar  cases  goes  to  show  that 
neglect,  cruelty,  sometimes  diseased  parentage,  were  the  causes 
ascribed.  How  can  we  understand  these  conditions!  Is  this 
a  curse  that  follows  to  the  third  and  fourth  generations?     Did 

142 


the  fathers  eat  sour  grapes?  Were  the  children's  teeth  on 
edge? 

"A  curse  that  follows  to  three  and  four  generations  is 
obliged  to  be  an  inherited  curse!  If  it  is  entailed  where  shall 
responsibility  be  affixed? 

"I  bring  this  subject  to  you,  my  friends,  because  of  its  im- 
portance to  motherhood,  because  the  question  is  vital,  and  be- 
cause responsibility  is  great. 

"Children  are  being  born  into  this  world  every  clay — every 
hour — yes,  every  minute.  Their  well-being  is  the  great  prob- 
lem of  the  times  we  live  in.  While  their  comfort  or  misery 
may  be  an  individual  matter,  they  have  great  effect  on  society, 
on  the  body  politic.  The  investigation  of  this  and  kindred 
subjects  commends  itself  to  women,  because  every  child  born 
into  earthly  existence  had  once  a  mother.  The  murderer  in  the 
electric  chair,  or  on  the  gallows  tree  had  his  mother  and  that 
mother  bore  for  his  sake,  the  heavy  burden,  laid  upon  mater- 
nity. She  may  have  been  a  worthy  woman  or  otherwise,  never- 
theless, she  went  down,  well  nigh  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death  to  give  him  existence.  This  murderer  came  here  an 
innocent  little  child,  in  the  likeness  of  its  parents.  Like  pro- 
duced like.  His  physical  being  was  undoubtedly  a  reproduction. 
Whether  his  mind  and  nature  was  also  the  product  of  his  par- 
entage who  can  say?  If  evil  tendencies  were  engrafted  into 
him  before  he  came  here  does  he  bear  all  the  responsibility? 
Shall  he  bear  all  the  blame?  If  environment  can  be  charged 
with  all  the  evil  results,  then  the  subject  is  equally  interesting 
and  important,  but  the  facts  go  to  show  that  heredity  is  equally 
prominent  as  a  motor  in  shaping  destiny.  Who  is  sufficient  un- 
to these  things?  I  am  always  rejoiced  to  know  that  the  mother 
of  a  man,  who  is  hanged — has  died — been  taken  from  evil  to 
come.  Who  can  measure  her  agony  or  picture  her  grief  as  she 
bends  her  poor  knees  in  the  governor's  office  to  plead  for  such 
a  child's  life?  And  friends,  this  is  a  subject  no  man  or  woman 
can  refuse  to  consider  on  the  plea  of  personal  protection. 

"No  home  can  protect  itself  from  the  entrance  of  disease, 
sorrow,  accident,  death  and  misfortune.  The  wheel  of  life  is 
forever  turning  over.  What  is  up  today  is  under  tomorrow. 
So  long  as  every  human  life  must  therefore  be  touched  by  those 
around  them,  no  exemption  can  be  claimed,  no  life  defended 
from  association  or  contact  with  others.  'Let  him  that  stand- 
eth,  take  heed  lest  he  fall,  no  one  liveth  to  himself,  no  one  dieth 
to  himself,'  says  the  Bible.  You  may  not  accept  heredity  as  a 
controlling  force  in  human  life,  and  you  may  feel  quite  sure  as 
to  protected  environment,  but  this  army  of  defective  persons 
perhaps  now  swelled  to  the  million  figures,  must  be  accounted 
for.  How  much  of  the  world's  deformity  in  mind  and  body  is 
owing  to  indifference  as  well  as  ignorance,  eternity,  alone  can 
answer.  No  one  present  can  dispute  the  fact  that  a  child,  born 
into  a  well-respected  home  with  opportunity  to  associate  with 
respectable  people,  with  books,  education,  discipline,  moral 
training,  good  example  and  cleanly  habits  has  an  infinitely  bet- 

143 


ter  chance  to  do  well  in  life,  health,  and  morals  than  the  poor 
waif,  the  slum  product,  germinated  in  a  hot  bed  of  sin  and 
debauchery,  and  brought  up  in  constant  association  with  others 
equally  unfortunate  and  under  similar  degradation.  But  it  is 
well  known  that  all  the  bad  people  in  the  world  do  not  emerge 
from  the  slums.  All  the  criminals  were  not  born  in  the  gutter. 
And  it  is  equally  well  known  that  some  of  the  most  famous 
people  in  literature,  science,  invention  and  religion,  were  born 
in  most  unfavorable  locations. 

"In  spite  of  training,  discipline,  education,  example  and 
entreaty,  black  sheep  do  come  out  of  well-tended  flocks ;  girls 
and  boys,  men  and  women  do  go  wrong  where  and  when  least 
expected,  and  their  reformation  would  seem  to  defy  both  grace 
and  gospel.  There  are  homes  where  mothers  tremble  at  every 
step  on  the  gravel,  every  knock  on  the  door.  They  have  kept 
their  own  lives  unspotted  from  filthiness  of  the  flesh  and  spirit, 
and  an  anguished  heart  moans,  "Oh!  God,  why  is  it?"  They 
go  burdened,  beset  with  doubts,  fears  and  vainly  seeking  an 
explanation.  They  are  racked  and  tortured,  actually  their  pure 
love  is  crucified  and  put  to  open  shame.  They  would  do  any- 
thing to  save  their  children  to  lives  of  virtue  and  honesty,  yes, 
they  would  be  glad  to  die  to  save  them  from  ruin  and  dis- 
grace and  count  their  own  loss  small  with  gain  so  great.  Who 
can  give  a  formula  for  a  problem  so  momentous  as  this,  and 
who  is  there  that  has  been  furnished  a  complete  answer? 

It  is  a  recognized  fact  that  the  civilized  world,  after  the  va- 
ried experience  and  record  of  centuries,  has  settled  down  upon 
the  necessity  of  one  husband  for  one  wife,  and  a  clean  life  for 
two.  The  well-being  of  their  offspring  is  the  plea  advanced. 
There  has  been  outcry  against  the  seating  of  a  Morman  repre- 
sentative in  the  national  congress. 

Thousands  of  men  and  women  affixed  their  names  to  peti- 
tions asking  that  polygamy  should  be  rebuked  by  the  dismissal 
of  Mr.  Eoberts.  Some  twenty  odd  years  ago  a  Morman  sat  in 
the  house  of  representatives  and  nobody  talked  about  turning 
him  out,  or  not  allowing  him  to  come  in.  He  was  reported  as 
having  four  wives,  but  they  did  not  appear  as  a  quartet  at  re- 
ceptions and  were  not  in  sight  from  the  galleries.  He  had 
credit  for  large  information  and  legislative  fitness.  I  can  re- 
call his  face  and  figure  still.  What  reason  occurs  to  your  mind 
that  one  should  be  tolerated  and  the  other  dismissed?  I  can 
find  nothing  that  will  explain,  save  that  the  women  of  the 
United  States  were  indignant  at  Morman  debasement  of  women. 
The  world  is  growing  wiser — has  been  awakened  to  the  real 
requirements  of  the  marriage  relation.  Women  have  had  the 
courage  of  conviction  and  demanded  the  disenthrallment  of  wo- 
men in  Utah.  Public  opinion  thundered  in  the  dismissal  of 
Eepresentative  Eoberts.  The  case  was  made  against  plural 
wives — the  women  of  this  country  won  it.  It  was  a  revolt 
against  the  degradation  of  plural  wives.  The  future  of  their 
children  was  not  the  question,  because  Mormons  claim  there 
are  no  illegitimates  in  Utah — no  need  for  foundling  hospitals. 

144 


Every  child  can  claim  its  father  and  inherit  his  estate.  It  may 
bear  its  father 's  name  and  the  woman  does  not  hide  in  shame 
while  the  man  walks  abroad  and  marries  a  respectable  girl  aft- 
erward, leaving  her  to  bear  the  burden. 

It  was  a  question  pertaining  solely  to  motherhood  and  the 
United  States  congress  declared  wives  were  no  longer  to  be 
classed  as  concubines  nor  slaves  in  a  harem.  She  must  stand 
erect  with  equal  dignity  and  respect,  by  the  father  of  her 
child.  The  discussion  may  still  range  about  the  size  of  her 
brain,  the  amount  of  her  pay  in  wage-earning,  the  scope  of  her 
sphere,  and  her  liberty  to  vote,  but  the  question  of  plural  wives 
and  harems  in  families  has  been  stamped  upon  by  the  national 
legislature. 

' '  This  Utah  business  calls  to  mind  the  error  that  prevailed 
for  centuries  in  regard  to  the  status  of  mothers  and  the  rela- 
tive position  of  women  to  mankind  generally. 

' '  I  have  been  ashamed  to  know  that  women  were  selected  in 
foreign  countries  for  breeding  purposes.  Queens  have  been 
picked  or  rejected  according  to  their  ability  to  give  birth  to 
heirs  to  the  crown.  Napoleon 's  downfall  begun  with  his  putting 
away  of  Josephine  for  purposes  of  selfish  ambition.  The  wo- 
man was  recognized  only  as  a  means  to  the  end.  She  was  ex- 
pected and  exhorted  to  sink  self  out  of  sight  when  her  owner 
commanded  her  maternity,  as  he  would  the  castle  they  lived  in 
or  the  money  he  wasted  in  war  and  debauchery.  The  women 
were  looked  upon  as  goods  and  chattels,  to  be  used  or  abused 
at  pleasure,  without  regard  to  the  results  in  children. 

' '  How  much  of  the  wrong,  the  injustice,  crime,  misery,  de- 
formity and  defects  of  the  human  race  have  been  the  outcome 
of  the  mother  in  serfdom  or  in  subject  condition  with  the 
debasement  of  one  sex  to  the  demands  of  the  other;  we  can 
never  know,  but  we  do  bear  witness  to  the  evil  traits,  tenden- 
cies, defects  and  deformities  which  have  been  coming  down  the 
stream  of  time,  which  can  be  understood  in  that  way  and  pos- 
sibly in  no  other.  We  do  know  that  our  great  men,  within  our 
knowledge,  were  not  by  a  great  majority  the  output  of  wealth 
or  luxury  or  learning,  but  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  children  of 
strong,  independent,  well-balanced  mothers  in  America. 

' '  Christianity,  the  great  elevator  of  the  woman-status,  has 
struggled  for  2,000  years  against  this  aforetime  subjection  of 
the  mother,  when  all  readers  of  our  Lord  's  gospels  must  under- 
stand the  honor  and  respect  the  Christ  uniformly  gave  to  the 
sex.  Never  a  word  against  the  woman,  always  tenderness,  pity 
and  respect,  from  the  love  he  bore  his  own  mother,  to  pity  for 
the  poor  tempted  one  to  whom  he  said,  "Go,  and  sin  no  more!  " 

"In  view  of  this  long  subjection,  perhaps  the  question  of 
heredity  may  seem  clearer  to  your  minds. 

"Pre-natal  influences  are  powerful,  potentially  vivid.  Some 
times  they  are  so  strong  as  to  photograph  themselves  on  the  un- 
born infant.  The  mother's  susceptibility  to  appetite,  to  fright, 
to  passion,  has  been  pictured  in  this  way  without  a  doubt. 
Common  sense  and  medical  science  would  indicate  the  necessity 

145 


for  giving  the  mother  a  living  chance  to  imprint  the  beauties 
and  protect  her  from  the  accidents,  the  mishaps  of  human  life. 
When  such  photogravure  is  so  complete  who  can  dispute  for 
an  instant  the  opportunity  to  print  upon  mind  and  heart  the 
likes  and  dislikes  of  its  mind  and  heart  the  likes  and  dislikes 
of  its  matrix,  when  the  mother  possesses  the  race-endowing 
function,  evidenced  in  life-giving  existence? 

' '  In  modern  parlance  the  mother  is  called  the  child 's  first 
teacher.  She  holds  even  a  much  nearer  and  more  exalted  rela- 
tion to  her  child.  When  she  can  and  does  sometimes,  photo- 
graph her  own  peculiar  thoughts  and  appetites,  written  in  such 
plain  lines  that  she  reads  without  hesitation,  then  I  say  she  is 
more  than  instructor.  If  this  woman  shall  have  been  so  mal- 
treated, tormented  and  bullied  that  her  child  reflects  the  mind 
and  temper  that  possessed  her,  at  a  crisis  in  its  pre-natal  ex- 
istence, where  will  responsibility  rest  or  wrong-doing  be  pun- 
ished? If  this  great  army  of  defectives  carries  not  only  the 
mark  of  its  defective  birth  but  the  mark  which  Cain  declared 
was  heavier  than  he  could  bear?  Is  not  this  subject  one  of 
such  importance  that  no  parent  can  afford  to  ignore  it?  'Mur- 
der of  the  innocents '  might  be  the  title  over  which  the  artist 
could  portray  his  impression  of  the  awful  crime  and  of  modern 
Herods,  against  the  unborn  child,  and  which  in  turn  the  doomed 
man  should  necessarily  hand  down  to  his  successors.  Again  I 
ask,  is  not  the  curse  that  follows  to  the  third  and  fourth  gener- 
ation an  inherited  curse?  Where  would  we  find  strength  to  bear 
this  burden  as  parents  except  for  God  's  promise  to  show  mercy 
unto  thousands  who  love  and  keep  his  commandments? 

' '  A  little  reflection  and  study  brings  to  view  more  and  more 
of  the  influences  of  heredity  and  environment.  Children  in 
early  youth  begin  to  show  their  peculiarities  and  predilections. 

' '  The  example  of  parents  is  the  primitive  line  of  instruc- 
tion. They  incline  to  the  same  food,  the  same  attitudes,  the 
same  tricks  in  speech,  tones  of  voice;  they  begin  to  walk  in 
their  elder 's  steps  as  soon  as  they  balance  themselves  for  walk- 
ing at  all.  They  intend  to  do  everything  they  see  their  parents 
do,  as  nearly  as  inexperience  can  follow  experts.  Their  imita- 
tions are  exceedingly  comical.  This  is  true  in  mind  and  man- 
ners also.  A  child  that  hears  no  vulgar  words  in  the  home  will 
be  shocked  when  it  encounters  vulgarity  outside.  An  incau- 
tious father  who  utters  oaths  before  his  little  children  may  ex- 
pect to  hear  baby  versions  of  what  is  to  them  a  very  smart 
speech.  The  silly  mother  who  repeats  gossip  before  her  child 
would  be  surprised  to  hear  the  glib  assertions  in  the  school 
room  and  play  grounds.  These  young  ones  go  poll-parroting 
for  two  reasons,  namely:  They  believe  all  they  hear  at  home — 
youthful  faith  is  strong  until  deceived — and  inherit  the  ten- 
dency to  talk  more  than  is  good  for  them.  They  catch  at  good 
things  with  the  same  readiness.  A  father  who  impresses  hon- 
est dealings  with  others  upon  his  boy's  mind,  his  son  is  not 
going  to  forget  it.  He  will  remember  it  when  his  father  is  cold 
in  his  coffin.     His  good  name  will  be  treasured,   and  maybe, 

146 


it  will  be  all  the  dead  man  could  bequeath  to  the  survivor.  No 
matter  where  that  boy  goes  or  where  he  dies,  he  will  remember 
his  father 's  good  name  with  satisfaction.  It  is  better  than 
riches,  truly,  because  the  riches  can  take  wings  and  fly  away, 
but  that  pleasing  memory  will  be  sweet  in  poverty  and  death. 

"But  when  a  child  has  no  pleasure,  either  in  the  example 
or  counsel  of  its  parents,  it  is  in  stormy  waters,  without  chart 
or  compass.  Heaven  pity  the  poor  mariner  with  whirlpools  all 
about  him!  Save  the  poor  girl  who  floats  with  the  tide  of  folly 
and  imprudence  and  is  lost  in  the  breakers! 

' '  The  older  I  grow,  the  more  I  see  of  the  dangers  that  im- 
peril human  existence — the  more  fearful  parental  responsibil- 
ity appears  to  me.  My  ignorance  even  now  appals  me,  when 
I  discover  that  I,  too,  rushed  in  where  angels  would  fear  to 
tread.  Marriages  are  so  hastily  contracted.  The  parties  can 
know  nothing  of  the  real  character,  temper,  habits  or  whims 
of  each  other  in  the  heyday  of  courtship.  The  seamy  sides  of 
matrimony  are  reserved  for  later  periods.  Then  it  is  too  late 
to  rectify  fatal  mistakes.  Divorces  leave  scars,  and  where 
children  are  involved  the  bleeding  wounds  are  left  open.  I 
could  not  say  that  a  woman  should  not  have  protection  and 
peace  if  there  were  children  involved,  because  her  own  life  is 
given  to  her  with  its  individual  responsibilities  and  she  is  ac- 
countable for  her  disposition  of  it,  but  I  do  say,  the  children 
of  a  divided  household  are  always  sufferers,  because  as  before 
said,  every  child  needs  the  best  efforts  of  both  parents  in  unity 
for  its  well-being.  And  a  son  born  of  a  mother  who  has  been 
bullied,  maltreated  and  cowed  into  submission  will  become  like 
his  father,  or,  he  will  turn  upon  the  author  of  his  being  with 
indignant  dislike,  as  soon  as  the  facts  are  made  known  to  him. 

' '  There  is  nothing  in  life  so  absolutely  candid  in  its  obser- 
vations and  declarations  as  a  young  child  with  average  intelli- 
gence, when  it  begins  to  take  the  measure  of  people  about  it. 
The  mind  is  as  soft  as  clay,  to  receive— as  hard  as  marble  to 
remove.  Time  nor  stress  of  weather  will  efface  early  impres- 
sions. It  is  the  general  oversight  or  misconception  of  parental 
influence  before  and  after  birth  which  has  kept  the  world  so 
full  of  sin  and  misery  since  creation.  We  can  never  hope  to 
have  a  perfect  physical  or  moral  race  until  the  conditions  of 
reproduction  warrant  it.  Immorality  is  moral  decay.  Un- 
cleanness  is  perpetuated.  How  many  families  do  you  know 
which,  after  twenty-five  years,  can  present  a  clean  bill  of 
health,  without  inherited  disease,  insanity,  deformity,  drunken- 
ness, immorality  or  crime?  The  proper  training  of  children 
has  been  much  discussed.  No  word  truly  meant  or  spoken  ever 
fell  on  barren  soil,  but  the  beginning  was  omitted.  We  start 
in  the  middle,  when  we  omit  the  foundation  of  the  building. 
We  act  as  if  everything  can  begin  in  haphazards,  provided  we 
can  prune  the  scions  about  the  main  tree.  I  tell  you  the  prep- 
aration for  the  child  will  go  a  long  way  toward  a  successful 
after  training.  It  is  astonishing  how  much  time  is  given  to 
other  subjects,  while  so  little  is  said  of  the  responsibility  of 

147 


assuming  parental  duties.  This  race-endowing  function  of 
motherhood — with  its  life-giving  existence,  is  the  -  greatest 
mystery,  and  at  the  same  time  the  grandest  work  committed  to 
humankind.  We  may  never  know  how  like  produces  like,  in  na- 
ture or  in  animals;  nevertheless  we  witness  the  miracle  in  every 
reproduction  of  its  kind  wherever  seen.  The  Almighty  Father 
selected  the  woman  as  the  custodian  of  the  child  in  the  most 
critical  period  of  its  existence.  After  all  these  thousands  of 
years  the  woman  still  loves  her  baby,  works  for  it  and  does 
her  best  for  it  under  difficulties.  When  I  hear  silly  people 
prating  about  superiority  in  sex  I  call  to  mind  this  trust  and 
confidence.  The  Lord  was  willing  to  trust  the  mother.  He 
knew  her  loyalty  to  the  maternal  instinct.  There  is  another 
fact  worthy  of  mention:  No  stream  rises  higher  than  its 
source.  Your  mother  gave  you  capacity  to  understand  and 
appropriate.  Education  and  opportunity  may  make  you  more 
learned,  but  she  gave  you  that  capacity.  Whatever  you  are 
she  could  have  been  under  the  same  influences.  '  Man  that  is 
born  of  woman  is  of  few  days  and  full  of  trouble, '  but  if  you 
had  not  been  molded — fashioned  into  shape  by  your  mother, 
you  would  still  be  floating  about  a  molecule  in  the  vastness  of 
eternity.  It  ill  becometh  the  creature  to  think  little  of  its 
creator.  She  gave  you  all  she  had  to  give.  You  could  not 
have  what  she  had  not  to  bestow.  I  have  looked  at  a  ton  of 
coal  and  a  little  diamond.  Both  have  value,  both  are  carbon; 
but  it  does  provoke  a  smile  to  hear  the  ton  of  coal  boast  of 
its  size  and  strength  as  evidence  of  its  greater  worth,  useful- 
ness, elevation   or  superiority. 

' '  Your  mother  would  have  made  you  perfect  if  conditions  had 
warranted  it.  Like  the  mother  of  Zebedee  's  children,  she 
is  bold  enough  to  ask  for  thrones  for  her  offspring.  You  would 
all  be  rulers,  presidents,  even  earthly  archangels,  if  she  reached 
the  limit  of  her  desire. 

"But  she  did  as  much  for  your  sister.  The  accident  of  sex, 
with  the  same  parents,  never  lifted  one  to  honor  or  lowered  the 
other  to  dishonor.  The  Ganges  river  was  used  in  old  time  to 
drown  girl  children.  It  would  be  a  good  place  to  carry  worth- 
less creatures  to  at  this  time — if  this  plea  of  superiority  held 
good — in  the  eyes  of  eternal  justice.  No  honorable  father  ever 
looked  in  his  daughter 's  face  and  thought  her  inferior  in  any- 
thing that  constituted  excellence  and  high  character.  There  is 
distinction,  there  is  difference,  but  the  law  says  a  girl  must 
have  equal  share  in  the  estate  of  her  father.  There  is  differ- 
ence between  a  carload  of  coal  and  in  the  sparkling  gem  on 
your  finger.  There  is  strength  in  a  bar  of  steel  and  in  a  watch 
spring — both  made  of  iron.  There  is  beauty  in  the  giant  oak 
and  there  is  beauty  in  the  vine  that  encircles  it;  both  grow  in 
the  same  soil — had  the  same  origin. 

' '  For  the  mother  to  do  her  duty  she  must  be  instructed.  Ig- 
norance is  discounted,  as  it  should  be  everywhere.  She  should 
understand,  at  least  some  of  these  duties  and  responsibiHties 
before  marriage.  Young  women,  like  young  birds,  are  crowded 
out  of  the  old  nest  sometimes;  sometimes  they  dislike  old  maid- 

148 


enism;  again  they  want  an  establishment;  they  are  ambitious 
like  their  brothers;  very  frequently  they  entertain  visionary 
ideas  about  being  worshipped  as  goddesses;  they  eschew  com- 
mon things  and  propose  to  be  happy  forever  on  syllabub  and 
rose  leaves  in  their  new  alliance.  They  actually  know  less 
about  the  care  of  infants  and  the  duties  pertaining  to  mother- 
hood than  anything  else  under  the  shining  sun.  If  the  young 
mother  has  common  sense  she  will  learn,  but  through  the  hard- 
est. If  she  is  hysterically  silly,  she  will  remain  so  and  a  bur- 
den to  herself  and  everybody  else.  And  she  is  to  be  pitied  as 
well  as  scolded.  It  speaks  loudly  for  either  the  indifference 
or  cowardice  of  modern  mothers  when  the  girl  leaves  the  home 
roof  before  her  own  mother  has  discharged  her  duty  to  this 
child,  whose  happiness  is,  or  should  be,  as  dear  to  her  as  her 
own  life.  How  can  she — pure  and  guileless  girl — know  unless 
she  has  a  teacher  who  can  speak  with  the  tenderness  of  whisper- 
ing angels  and  the  firmness  of  a  judge  on  the  bench  as  to  her 
inevitable  future?  What  instructor  so  capable  as  her  own 
mother?  That  innocent,  ignorant  child  deserves  plain- 
featured  advice  in  this  crisis  of  her  life  and  every  consideration 
as  to  health,  responsibility  and  the  probable  burdens  of  mother- 
hood should  be  carefully  presented,  not  only  for  the  daughter's 
sake,  but  for  those  to  come  after  her. 

"How  many  poor  young  birds  nutter  in  glee  out  of  the  home 
nest,  only  to  fall  on  the  ground  and  die!  Boys,  equally  with 
girls,  should  be  advised  by  loving  parents  before  they  enter 
upon  the  high  and  holy  estate  of  matrimony.  If  a  young  man 
is  sensible  he  will  appreciate  it,  and  if  he  is  not,  then  the 
mother  will  have  delivered  the  whole  counsel  of  a  parent  in 
the  sight  of  God  and  in  view  of  the  issues  involved.  As  a  rule 
the  romance  has  been  allowed  to  obscure  the  realities.  The 
disagreeables  have  concealed  themselves  under  the  sensibilities, 
highly  overwrought. 

' '  The  marriage  relation  is  generally  viewed  from  an  exclu- 
sively selfish  standpoint,  hence  so  many  failures  and  disappoint- 
ments.  Better  a  thousand  times  be  very  lonely  in  single  blessed- 
ness than  to  be  very  unhappy  in  married  misery.  The  happiest 
woman  in  the  world,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  wife  of  a  true,  good 
man,  who  sympathizes  with  her,  cheerishes  her,  loves  and  pro- 
tects her.  Together  they  can  raise  their  offspring  in  unity  of 
purpose  and  with  an  eye  single  to  their  real  progress  and  pros- 
perity here  and  hereafter.  A  cottage  would  be  a  palace  of  con- 
tent. Neither  poverty  nor  riches  would  affect  their  abiding 
trust  in  each  other,  the  only  sound  basis  of  their  respect  and 
affection.  But  it  is  a  thousand  times  better  not  to  marry  at  all 
rather  than  live  in  a  hailstorm  of  discontent  or  blighting  frost 
of  mutual  dislike  and  antipathy.  Under  such  conditions  no  par- 
ent is  qualified  to  do  the  proper  thing  either  to  themselves  or 
their  children.  Food,  raiment,  money,  opportunity  may  be 
there  in  lavish  abundance,  but  that  household  has  broken  or 
lost  its  mainspring,  like  a  good-looking  watch  that  won't  keep 
the  time.  With  genuine  affection  authority  would  be  its  insig- 
nia of  love  and  respect.     Obedience  would  be  the  perfect  type 

149 


of  loyalty.  But  in  a  household  where  discord  prevails  unrest 
settles  down  like  a  cloud  on  young  and  old. 

"The  records  in  New  York  city  in  the  year  1897  showed  13,- 
000  divorce  eases  for  that  year  alone.  These  unhappy  families 
were  exploited  in  the  divorce  court  and  their  cases  adjudged. 
This  did  not  include  the  thousands  who  didn't  go  there,  who 
made  no  outcry  for  appearance  's  sake,  perhaps  for  the  sake  of 
children,  nor  did  it  include  high-life  divorces,  where  rapid  ex- 
change of  partners  was  carried  on.  Cruel  treatment  and  drunk- 
enness was  the  plea  in  the  most  of  cases.  Infidelity  to  the  mar- 
riage relation,  desertion  and  refusal  to  support  came  in  fre- 
quently. Think  of  the  havoc  that  prevailed!  "Impure  as  a 
drunkard 's  blood  "  is  a  medical  axiom  of  long  standing.  Chil- 
dren inherit  other  blood  impurities,  such  as  cancer,  scrofula, 
goitre,  consumption — why  not  drunkenness?  We  are  very  strict 
in  quarantining  against  infectious  diseases.  A  man  who 
walked  down  the  street,  broken  out  with  smallpox,  would  have 
a  brief  exercise  before  he  was  taken  up.  Yet  many  cases  are 
reported  where  other  infectious  diseases  have  been  carried  into 
the  homes  of  clean,  pure-hearted  women,  and  sadder  still  into 
the  life-blood  of  her  own  dear  innocent  children,  where  she  had 
no  protection  for  herself  and  scant  relief  to  them.  Like  the 
frogs  in  Egypt,  these  evils  go  up  into  fine  houses  sometimes,  as 
well  as  down  into  hovels.  I  tell  you  the  greatest  problem  that 
confronts  the  human  race  is  not  its  food,  clothing,  transporta- 
tion, commerce,  sound  money  or  tariff.  It  is  the  protection  of 
motherhood,  the  foundation,  the  basic  stone  in  the  welfare  and 
happiness  of  nations.  We  cannot  have  a  truly  prosperous  peo- 
ple or  nation  until  the  conditions  of  reproduction  warrant  it. 
The  man  himself  is  manifestly  of  greater  value  than  all  the 
things  he  needs  for  sustenance  or  pleasure.  To  this  neglect 
of  motherhood,  the  great  force,  the  only  human  force  this  side 
of  heaven,  with  gifts  for  life-bestowing  existence,  we  can 
ascribe  ten  thousand  ills  and  failures,  and  who  can  measure  the 
losses,  the  disappointments,  the  defeats  and  disasters  that  have 
occurred  from  the  neglect  and  oversight?  The  greatest  bur- 
den upon  our  civil  government  is  the  protection  of  innocent, 
honest,  law-abiding  people,  from  the  guilty,  dishonest  and  law- 
less. The  expenses  of  courts,  juries,  prisons  ,etc,  are  a  ter- 
rible burden  upon  the  taxpayers.  Add  to  these  expenses  the 
hospitals,  asylums,  sanitariums  for  defective  classes,  and  you 
can  appreciate  these  results,  arising  from  unhappy  conditions 
of  reproduction  in  human  life.  How  many  criminals  were  in- 
sane when  a  crime  or  felony  was  committed — who  can  tell? 
With  the  delicate  structure  of  the  human  brain  acted  upon  by 
impulses  perhaps  inoculated  before  birth,  who  can  tell  when 
and  where  insanity  lay  dormant  until  struck  by  passion? 

"When  medical  philosophy  assures  us  that  a  single  glass  of 
intoxicating  liquor  will  increase  blood  circulation  until  the 
pulsations  are  rapid  and  abnormal  as  in  fever,  what  can  be  ex- 
pected of  a  brain  that  is  surcharged  and  violently  inflamed? 
When  overloaded  digestive  organs  have  been  known  to  pro- 
duce sudden  death  because  of  the  defective  physical  structure 

150 


and  condition  of  the  victim,  who  will  dispute  the  excessive  sus- 
ceptibility of  the  human  brain  to  disease  and  attack? 

' '  After  the  system  has  been  exposed  by  inherited  disease  and 
dissipation,  and  both  brain  and  stomach  are  in  inflamed  con- 
dition, how  easy,  how  rapid,  how  fatal  are  accidents  to  the 
delicate  machinery  of  the  human  brain?  I  notice  the  plea  of 
insanity  is  almost  the  universal  plea  in  defense  of  a  murderer. 
Who  dares  to  say  it  was  not  a  proper  plea?  When  you  rec- 
ollect under  what  conditions  the  great  majority  of  human  be- 
ings find  their  way  into  existence,  why  not  insanity?  I  take 
it  that  reputable  attorneys  would  not  urge  what  they  know 
to  be  a  sham  or  fraud.  I  know  there  are  brazen  instances  of 
what  seem  to  be  premeditated,  spite,  hate,  all  things  revengeful 
and  diabolic.    Who  knows,  save  Omniscence? 

' '  The  child  and  its  life  reminds  me  of  a  fort  built  with 
defenses  on  one  side  and  no  barricades  on  the  other.  In  front 
there  are  churches,  schools,  courts,  training  and  example.  On 
the  other  side,  the  unprotected  side,  there  are  the  bad  tempers 
of  its  ancestry,  diseased  blood,  proneness  to  evil,  weakness  in 
concealed  vital  parts  and  the  intricate  brain  machinery  liable 
to  accident  in  a  thousand  ways. 

' '  The  enemy  does  not  usually  train  his  guns  on  the  pro- 
tected side.  He  has  only  to  throw  a  bomb,  or  light  a  fuse, 
or  touch  a  concealed  but  live  wire  and  the  unexpected  explosion 
occurs.  Sometimes  a  tap  on  the  head  upsets  the  whole  man 
in  his  mind.  Then  again,  through  his  appetite,  perhaps  an  in- 
herited craving  for  strong  drink  or  opium,  the  train  having 
been  laid  years  and  years  before  he  was  born:  the  match  can 
be  struck  which  opens  to  the  fire-fiend  the  least  defensive  point 
in  the  poor  victim  's  life.  The  mother,  herself  the  heir  of  an- 
cestral entailments,  is  tortured  to  witness  the  ruin  as  the  forces 
of  evil  fling  themselves  en  masse  upon  the  character  and  hap- 
piness of  her  offspring.  Parental  love  is  the  only  enduring 
thing  in  the  dismantled  fort.  It  will  go  anywhere  that  poor 
child  goes.  By  God 's  grace  we  discover  in  the  records  of  eter- 
nity that  God's  love  for  fallen  man  and  woman's  love  for  her 
child  have  kept  the  race  from  eternal  ruin.  Who  knows  how 
the  guilty  man  or  woman  reached  this  place  of  exposed  de- 
pravity? This  subject  is  of  vital  importance  to  us  all.  We 
know  not  what  a  day  may  bring  forth  to  show  the  exceeding 
instability  of  any  process  of  reasoning  based  upon  the  hidden 
things  that  hereditary  transmission  may  develop.  It  is  import- 
ant in  every  light  that  can  be  thrown  on  by  the  citizen,  the 
philanthropist,  the  patriot,  the  legislator,  the  Christian  or  the 
parent.  When  people  can  be  induced  to  think  a  great  step  for- 
ward has  been  gained. 

"Arrest  of  thought  is  necessary  to  begin  any  reform.  It 
has  been  said  there  is  no  salvation  without  suffering.  Surely 
there  have  been  such  heavy  burdens  borne  by  the  loving  mothers 
of  the  great  human  race  as  to  merit  attention  to  the  necessity 
for  better  general  conditions  in  the  great  responsibilities  of 
motherhood. 

151 


"Kippling  has  recently  given  evidence  at  once  of  the  good- 
ness of  his  heart  and  the  quality  of  his  genius  by  writing  a 
poem  which  will  be  sold  in  behalf  of  the  fund  for  the  benefit 
of  the  widows  and  orphans  of  soldiers  killed  in  South  Africa. 
It  is  an  appeal  in  the  style  of  the  ' '  Barrack  Room  Ballads ' ' 
for  the  women  and  children  ' '  Tommy  Atkins ' '  has  left  behind. 
The  last  stanza  reads: 

"Let  us  manage  so  as  later  we  can  look  him  in  the  face, 

And  tell  him  what  he  'd  very  much  prefer, 
That  while  he  saved  the  empire  his  employer  saved  his  place, 

And  his  mate,  that  you  and  me  looked  out  for  her. 
He  's  an  absent-minded  beggar,  and  he  may  forget  it  all, 

But  we  do  not  want  his  kiddies  to  remind  him 
That  we  sent    'em  to  the  workhouse  while  their  daddy  ham- 
mered Paul, 

So  we'll  help  the  homes  our  Tommy's  left  behind  him. 

Each  stanza  has  a  separate  refrain,  of  which  the  following 
is  a  sample: 

Cook 's  son,  Duke  's  son,  son  of  a  belted  Earl. 

Son  of  a  Lambeth  publican,  it 's  all  the  same  today, 
Each  of    'em  doing  his  country 's  work,  and  who 's  to   look 
after  the  girl? 

Pass  the  hat  for  your  credit 's  sake  and  pay,  pay,  pay. 

Let  me  paraphrase  Kipling  in  a  few  words: 

Let  us  act  so  as  later  we  can  look  the  mother  in  the  face, 

And  tell  her  what  she  would  much  prefer. 

While  statesmen  saved  the  state,  mothers  saved  their  child; 
And  her  home,  that  you  and  me  looked  out  for  her. 
Men  are  absent-minded  fathers — they  might  forget  it  all. 

She  does  not  want  her  children  to  remind  him 
That  he  sent  them  down  to  nun,  while  the  mother  prayed  for 
all: 

So  we'll  help  the  mother  raise  the  kids  he  left  behind  him. 

"The  statement  may  sound  radical,  strong,  but  I  am  going 
to  say  that  no  child  should  come  into  this  hard  world  to  suffer 
unless  it  has  a  decent  home  to  be  born  into,  with  clean  blood  in 
its  little  veins.  I  do  not  charge  my  Heavenly  Father  with  a 
desire  or  willingness  to  punish  the  innocent. 

"Eternal  justice  can  never  stand  as  the  author  of  evil.  The 
unborn  infant  which  is  to  come  here  without  its  own  consent  has 
a  vested  right  to  a  living  chance  and  if  its  parents  gave  it  only 
its  physical  being  it  should  still  have  a  living  chance,  or  it 
should  not  come  here  at  all.  If  parents  are  so  obtuse,  so  in- 
different, so  criminally  negligent  to  this  great  trust,  then  they 
should  have  a  guardian,  and  be  declared  unfit  to  attend  to  the 
business.  There  are  some  restrictions  in  matrimony,  but  less 
than  in  any  known  public  business  on  this  earth.     There  is  in- 

152 


hibition  in  some  places  as  to  kinship,  but  it  is  not  strict  enough, 
because  the  effete  monarchies  of  Europe  will  demonstrate  the 
impotency  of  mating  among  near  relations.  Having  placed  some 
restrictions  others  should  follow  without  serious  difficulty. 
Every  man  who  handles  public  money  must  give  a  bond.  I 
don't  care  how  good  or  honest  he  may  be,  he  has  to  give  secur- 
ity in  a  shape  of  collaterals,  or  some  men  worth  the  bond  must 
stand  for  him,  or  he  can't  hold  the  position.  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  offer  to  you  the  size  of  the  bond  or  the  number  of 
security  signers  that  should  go  with  a  marriage  certificate,  but 
I  am  sure  there  should  be  enough  to  make  it  binding.  I  can- 
not measure  the  value  of  human  life  in  cold  cash.  I  cannot 
weigh  domestic  happiness  by  the  pound  or  in  English  sover- 
eigns, but  I  say  there  should  go  with  a  marriage  license  a  bond 
for  proper  performance  of  its  obligations.  I  like  that  old  Eng- 
lish style  of  publishing  the  banns.  There  cannot  be  too  much 
advertisement  of  the  intention  when  bigamy  and  seduction  pre- 
vail in  the  land.  A  health  certificate  should  have  been  required 
a  hundred  years  ago.  Any  man  or  woman  who  had  genuine  af- 
fection for  a  life  time  marriage  tie  would  not  object  to  a  health 
certificate  where  so  much  is  involved. 

' '  I  expect  I  have  seen  the  marriage  ceremony  performed  a 
hundred  times,  most  of  them  in  our  home.  All  sorts  of  people 
rush  into  matrimony.  Any  man  or  even  youth  who  can  beg  or 
borrow  one  dollar  and  sixty  cents — ten  cents  for  revenue — 
can  marry  if  he  will.  The  ordinary  who  issues  the  license  is 
only  concerned  that  the  age  of  the  parties  will  escape  punish- 
ment, and  the  permit  is  issued. 

' '  Certainly,  the  high  and  holy  estate  of  matrimony  should 
have  as  many  safeguards  as  an  insurance  policy,  or  as  public 
moneys,  or  transfer  in  real  estate.  The  recording  of  the  mar- 
riage certificate  is  the  only  protection  to  name  or  property  that 
the  children  of  this  marriage  are  given.  That  amounts  to 
nothing  when  a  worthless  father  forsakes  them  in  penury,  cr  a 
degraded  mother  throws  them  into  the  home  of  the  friendless. 
It  fatigues  the  indignation  to  see  the  indifference  of  public 
opinion  to  the  heavy  burdens  that  go  with  a  population,  swelled 
to  mammoth  size,  by  allowing  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  peo- 
ple to  spawn  these  misplaced  children  upon  tax-ridden  commu- 
nities. 

"No  man  will  purchase  real  estate  without  examining  the 
title  away  back  to  make  sure  he  can  hold  it.  He  will  not  hand 
over  a  check  for  the  purchase  money  until  the  deed  is  in  reach 
of  his  hand.  But  children  are  mated  every  day  to  absolute 
strangers  and  inquiries  concerning  character  or  habits  wouldn  't 
amount  to  a  row  of  pins,  in  the  absence  of  proper  and  bind- 
ing security.  A  man  can  get  up  a  petition  on  any  subject  and 
signed  by  anybody.  I  heard  of  a  joker  once  who  carried  a  pa- 
per incriminating  the  signer,  who  put  his  name  down  without 
reading  it.  But  when  a  bond  has  to  be  made  with  money  value, 
I  tell  you  there  will  be  care  and  investigation.  In  eastern  coun- 
tries where  cattle  and  flocks  were  considered  purchase  money, 
for  either  bride  or  groom — the  sheep  bleated  and  the  cows  bel- 

153 


lowed  in  the  new  owner 's  home  before  the  marriage  feast  was 
eaten. 

' '  But  our  present  civilization  permits  two  children  sometimes, 
who  know  no  more  about  raising  a  family  than  the  loose  straws 
in  a  last  year's  bird's  nest,  to  enter  into  marriage,  and  if  it 
were  not  for  the  kind  Providence  that  watches  over  the  spar- 
row's nest  in  a  mountain  pine,  these  poor  birds  would  perish 
in  the  first  untimely  frost.  We  apply  improved  methods  to 
everything  under  the  heavens,  save  protection  to  motherhood 
and  security  for  the  offspring.  Inexperience  rushes  in  blindly, 
where  present  and  eternal  happiness  is  imperiled.  Sadder 
than  all  the  results  of  unfitness  are  handed  down  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  Cattle  breeders  take  no  risk.  It  must  be 
the  best  or  none.  Fruit  men  will  go  a  thousand  miles  for 
grafts  that  are  well  guaranteed.  Yet  the  diseased,  the  de- 
formed are  given  a  license  to  marry  and  families  are  increased 
with  absolute  disregard  for  the  rights  of  the  unborn  genera- 
tions. We  make  furious  outcry  against  importation  of  the 
slum  denizens  of  foreign  countries,  without  raising  a  hand 
to  stop  the  rapid  increase  of  defective  classes  already  here. 
'Saving  at  the  spigot,  flowing  at  the  bung,'  would  parallel  such 
a  fatuous  policy.  Because  motherhood  bears  the  very  unequal 
burden,  I  bring  these  things  to  your  notice.  The  lifetime  na- 
ture of  the  marriage  relation  is  the  plea  I  offer — the  future  of 
our  children  is  the  menacing  danger,  the  children  that  come 
after  them,  is  the  reward  or  the  punishment,  which  will  come 
from  either  good  or  bad  laws.  Woman 's  responsibility  to  her 
Creator,  to  herself,  to  her  children,  will  in  coming  years  make 
her  apply  her  forces  to  reform  as  has  been  before  exemplified. 
It  is  a  crying  shame  that  a  little  10-year-old  girl  in  Georgia  is 
deemed  qualified  to  protect  a  woman  's  dearest  possession  from 
rapine  and  seduction.  From  my  point  of  view  maternity  would 
rank  higher  than  anything  in  creation  below  our  eternal  salva- 
tion. The  best  efforts  in  legislation,  the  greatest  expenditure 
in  philanthropy,  the  most  abounding  patience  and  charity  in 
religion  and  social  economy  could  find  ample  scope  in  the  great- 
est work  known  to  human  kind. 

' '  The  mother 's  work  comes  next  to  the  divine.  She  needs 
heights  and  depths  of  love  and  purity  to  qualify  her  for  a  prop- 
er preparation,  and  to  sustain  her  proper  energies.  Her  child 
is  a  part  of  her  own  life.  She  gives  it  a  place  in  the  world. 
If  she  is  a  slave  her  child  is  a  slave.  The  child  is  lifted  up  or 
lowered  down  by  the  home  it  is  born  into.  It  shares  with  her, 
receives  from  her,  inherits  from  her.  Oh!  mother,  the  very 
breath  which  the  Lord  God  breathed  from  His  own  mouth  into 
the  first  created  being  when  Adam  became  a  living  soul !  The 
Lord  Almighty  placed  the  burden  of  maternity  upon  the  woman, 
He  laid  the  burden  of  example  and  support  upon  the  man. 
What  did  He  say  of  His  servant  Abraham  1  "I  know  he  will 
command  his  household  after  him  to  do  justice  and  judgment. ' ' 
What  did  He  say  of  the  high  priest  Eli?  'His  sons  made 
themselves  vile  and  he  restrained  them  not.'  Eli's  wife  was 
not  blamed,  poor  soul ! 

154 


' '  This  burden  of  child-bearing  is  one  the  angels  might  desire 
to  look  into;  this  burden  of  example  is  woefully  neglected  in 
the  training,  raising  and  uplifting  of  the  race. 

' '  Oh,  what  wrongs  are  inflicted  on  some  misguided  young 
mothers !  How  heavy  her  burden  when  she  is  left  stranded  and 
her  betrayer  goes  abroad  with  liberty  to  wreck  another  wo- 
man 'a  life ! 

' '  An  aged  statesman,  now  deceased,  once  advocated  the  code 
duello  in  my  presence.  He  said  there  were  some  wrongs  that 
the  law  could  not  remedy,  some  wounds  money  could  not  heal. 
'  If  I  had  a  young  daughter, '  said  he,  '  and  her  betrayer  left 
her  in  shame  and  humiliation,  I  could  not  live  on  the  planet 
with  him.  He  would  have  to  go  or  I  would  know  the  reason 
why.  I  could  not  shoot  him  down,  like  an  assassin  from  behind. 
I  could  not  go  to  the  court  hourse  for  a  money  value  on  her 
wrecked  life.  I  would  meet  him,  let  him  understand  what  he 
had  to  answer  for,  in  open  day. ' 

' '  Betrayal  is  like  death,  past  helping.  What  should  be  the 
punishment,  when  a  poor  girl  is  deceived  into  a  sham  marriage, 
and  everything  she  holds  dear  in  life  has  been  worse  than  wast- 
ed on  a  villian!  And  what  is  there  left  in  life  for  man  or 
woman  who  has  an  unfaithful  life  partner? 

' '  These  matters  are  discussed  every  day.  They  fill  the  daily 
newspapers,  the  court  records.  Alas!  there  are  daily  reasons 
for  such  discussion!  Church  and  state  are  constantly  concerned 
in  the  making  of  better  men  and  women.  We  have  exhausted 
the  punishment  side  of  the  question.  The  preventive  side  has 
not  been  explored  to  the  root  of  the  evil.  Turn  in  the  light 
on  the  degraded  homes,  protect  the  mother  from  cruelty  and 
abuse,  rescue  the  children  from  vice  and  debauchery,  guard 
the  marriage  permits  as  you  guard  public  moneys,  and  when  a 
moral  question  comes  before  you,  take  the  side  that  leans  to  the 
security  of  mother  and  child,  because  human  life  begins  there. 

' '  It  has  been  said  that  the  German  emperor  always  feels  ag- 
grieved against  his  mother,  the  Empress  Frederick  because  he 
came  into  life  with  a  withered  arm.  He  was  a  defective  crea- 
tion ;  he  resents  it ;  he  charges  it  up  to  his  mother,  as  is  re- 
ported. Shall  mothers  bear  the  burdens  of  all  the  defective 
persons,  all  the  criminals,  all  the  vice,  all  the  unhappiness? 

' '  May  God  help  us  to  help  ourselves  and  each  other ! 

' '  In  closing  I  desire  to  express  my  pleasure  in  the  prospect 
of  a  reformatory  for  juvenile  offenders — here  in  Fulton  county. 
Pardon  a  little  personal  experience.  Nearly  twenty  years  ago 
I  discovered  there  was  in  Fulton  county  records,  the  history 
of  a  little  fifteen-year-old  colored  girl,  who  had  been  convicted 
in  the  superior  court  of  theft  and  sentenced  to  five  years  in  the 
state  penitentiary  chain  gangs.  She  was  prosecuted  by  a  negro 
woman,  the  only  witness  a  nine-year-old  colored  girl.  She  was 
accused  and  convicted  of  snatching  fifty  cents  from  the  younger 
girl,  who  carried  home  some  washing  and  was  paid  a  half 
dollar  for  her  mother. 

155 


' '  That  girl  lay  in  jail  months  waiting  trial.  She  was  sent  to 
the  chaingang  and  fastened  to  the  general  chain  every  night 
along  with  hardened  criminals — veterans  in  crime.  An  ex- 
justiee  of  the  supreme  court  gave  me  facts  upon  facts  to  show 
why  a  reformatory  was  needed.  I  did  my  little  best,  and  the 
newspapers  had  a  monkey  and  parrot  time  of  it  in  beating  me 
down.  I  found  there  was  but  one  organized  body  of  women 
in  Georgia,  except  foreign  missionary  societies,  in  the  respect- 
ive churches.  I  went  to  Macon,  joined  the  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  union  at  its  state  convention  and  made  my  debut 
as  a  public  speaker,  in  behalf  of  this  reformatory  idea  or  policy. 
My  heart  went  pit-a-pat.  I  was  scared  and  tearful.  Rev.  W. 
H.  Potter,  then  editing  the  Wesleyan  Advocate,  exhorted  for  me 
— he  of  blessed  memory !  My  resolution  went  through,  and  the 
next  winter  the  memorial  was  presented  to  our  law-makers. 
There  were  said  to  be  at  this  time  137  youths  in  the  chaingangs 
under  sixteen  years  of  age.  There  were  nearly  half  a  hundred 
negro  women  and  girls  in  the  same  place.  These  women  were 
represented  as  crime  centers,  the  vilest  of  the  vile.  I  plead  with 
all  my  strength  for  their  removal.  When  an  avalanche  of  pro- 
test was  hurled  against  the  reformatory  movement,  I  'd  shake 
off  the  debris  and  rise  again  to  the  rescue.  I  had  only  a  little 
pick  and  shovel  to  meet  the  ice  gorge  of  apathy  and  organized 
opposition.  When  I  felt  as  if  I  could  not  stand  any  longer,  the 
memory  of  that  poor  forsaken  colored  girl  would  come  over  me. 
She  was  in  degradation  so  vile  that  a  woman 's  soul  was  horri- 
fied to  think  of  it.  I  thought  the  sentence,  so  disproportioned 
to  the  offense  that  I  could  not  forget  it.  How  much  kinder  it 
would  have  been  to  have  shot  her  before  she  donned  the  stripes. 
What  was  she  when  she  was  released — if  death  did  not  relieve 
her?  It  was  seed  thrown  on  the  waters.  I  was  glad  to  see  the 
Recorder  came  to  your  assistance.  The  pulpit  waked  up  and 
thundered.     God  speed  the  movement  to  a  successful  finish. 

' '  Once  upon  a  time  an  ignorant  British  sailor  had  an  ear 
sliced  off  by  a  tyrannical  naval  officer — dressed  in  a  little  brief 
authority.  That  missing  ear  waked  up  the  British  nation  to 
reforms  in  the  navy,  that  scores  of  petitions  failed  to  put  in 
motion.  My  poor  little  colored  girl  did  not  move  the  recorder 
and  the  ministers  I  know,  but  some  other  child  did  do  it,  and 
I  look  for  a  realization  of  the  hope  that  has  been  a  lively  one 
with  me  for  twenty  years  and  more.  No  state,  county  or  town 
can  afford  to  do  without  a  reformatory.  Juvenile  offenders 
should  not  be  herded  with  veterans  in  crime.  Women  should 
not  be  confined  with  other  convicts.  In  the  very  nature  of 
things  they  will  find  lower  deeps  in  vice,  if  lower  deeps  can  be 
found.  Heaven  speed  the  day  when  justice  can  shake  hands 
with  humanity  and  point  to  reformatory  influences  along  with 
punishment.  No  sovereign  state  can  in  justice  delegate  either 
the  reforms  or  the  punishment  to  other  and  private  persons. 
The  criminal  laws  should  have  due  regard  to  moral  laws.  May 
God  incline  our  Christian  men  to  investigate! 

' '  Oh,  ladies,  when  you  remember  the  thousands  of  juvenile 
convicts  who  have  been  for  so  long  time  in  Georgia,  familiarized 

156 


with  punishment,  and  removed  from  the  influences  that  go  to  im- 
provement of  mind  and  heart  and  conscience  can  we  wonder 
that  the  courts  are  always  busy — the  jails  full,  the  asylum  full, 
crowded,  packed  and  yet  the  cry  is  abroad  in  the  land,  'No 
money  to  build  reformatories?' 

"In  view  of  the  influences  which  have  moulded  the  lives  and 
hearts  of  these  erring  and  unfortunate  beings,  the  malforma- 
tion of  human  kind  in  mind,  body  and  inheritance,  which  has 
been  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation,  how  needful 
to  put  aside  the  trivial  happenings  of  a  day  all  minor  duties 
and  responsibilities  and  begin  a  rescue  movement  at  once? 
What  patience,  charity,  brotherly  kindness,  benevolence  and 
tender  pity  should  attend  the  efforts?  'Do  not  for  one  re- 
pulse forego  your  purpose  that  you  resolved  to  effect,'  says 
Shakespeare.  I  wish  you  great  success  with  your  reformatory 
movement — then  I  trust  your  example  will  be  followed  in 
every  county  in  the  state.  Thanking  you  for  this  patient 
hearing,  and  grateful  for  the  kind  attention  which  moved  you 
to  call  me  to  your  aid,  I  leave  my  subject  to  your  earnest 
consideration. ' ' 


THE  METHODIST  PUBLISHING  HOUSE  CLAIM 

AND  MY  CONNECTION  WITH  ITS 

EXPOSURE. 


After  long  experience  with  polities  and  politicians, 
I  am  convinced  that  it  is  prudent  (if  not  palatable) 
to  make  a  clear  statement  of  all  matters  in  which  you 
have  been  involved  and  to  protect  one's  self  thereby, 
from  malign  influences  after  you  are  dead,  when  you 
are  not  able  to  present  the  facts  (because  death  has 
intervened  and  thereby  hindered  a  proper  defense  of 
name  and  motives,  and  when  there  is  perhaps  nobody 
to  speak  for  you)  for  yourself. 

In  the  progress  of  this  claim,  presented  to  the  U.  S. 
Congress,  for  damages  inflicted  on  the  Methodist  pub- 
lishing plant  in  Nashville,  Tenn.,  by  Federal  occupa- 
tion (and  abuse  of  their  military  authority),  I  had 
been  familiar  with  the  subject,  all  the  time,  during  the 
war,  and  after  the  war,  particularly  during  the  44th, 
45th  and  46th  Congresses,  while  Dr.  Felton  was  mem- 
ber from  the  7th  Congressional  District.  In  fact  I 
was  petitioned  by  one  high  in  Methodist  authority  to 
champion  the  claim,  as  sectional  animosity  was  great 

157 


at  that  period,  and  it  was  believed  that  I  might  per- 
suade where  others  had  failed,  to  get  a  satisfactory 
hearing.  I  declined  to  attempt  it,  because  my  hus- 
band had  made  a  worthy  record  against  lobby  work, 
before  Congress  and  state  legislatures,  and  my  mo- 
tives might  have  been  misjudged  in  the  endeavor  to 
aid  the  M.  E.  Church  South  in  its  continuous  effort 
to  recover  the  claim,  with  the  large  amount  of  money 
involved.  I  mention  this  to  show  that  I  was  not  ignor- 
ant of  prevailing  conditions,  in  regard  to  this  matter 
but  fully  aware  of  the  methods  used  by  lobbyists  in 
Washington  city,  and  their  quality  and  quantity,  and 
my  belief  that  those  who  were  found  trying  to  per- 
suade senators  and  representatives  to  vote  for  claims 
where  money  was  involved  took  considerable  risks,  as 
to  reputation  and  motives,  in  so  doing. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1898  this  claim  matter 
appeared  in  the  Congressional  Record  which  I  read 
diligently.  I  understood  that  Mr.  Stahlman,  as  pro- 
moter, was  on  the  ground  and  I  had  some  knowledge 
of  the  gentleman,  when  he  was  pushing  a  claim  for 
"betterments"  on  the  state  road,  and  when  the  leg- 
islature of  Georgia  was  getting  ready  to  again  re- 
lease the  W.  &  A.  R.  R.  and  my  suspicions  were  then 
aroused,  as  to  his  peculiar  motives  and  purposes. 

Mr.  T.  B.  Felder  had  published  a  statement  in  At- 
lanta papers  of  Mr.  Stahlman 's  activity  in  securing 
votes  for  a  certain  member  of  Congress  from  Georgia, 
and  I  had  felt  convinced  at  that  time  that  Mr.  E.  B. 
Stahlman  had  abiding  interest  in  another  member  of 
Congress,  nearer  my  home.  The  signs  of  the  times 
were  ominous;  and  I  was  more  than  ready  to  believe 
that  he  had  some  mammoth  scheme  on  foot  in  Wash- 
ington city  and  was  at  hand  to  make  his  Georgia  mem- 
bers vote  for  it  in  Congress.  So  I  determined  to  keep 
an  eye  open  on  Mr.  Stahlman  and  the  men  that  he 
used  in  Georgia  for  the  interests  of  certain  railroads, 
and  his  various  schemes  before  Congress.  Perhaps 
this  explanation  will  be  ample  to  explain  my  abiding 
interest  in  Mr.  E.  B.  Stahlman  and  the  two  Georgia 
Congressmen  who  were  his  most  obedient,  whenever 
called  upon. 

158 


On  July  19,  1895,  a  lobby  contract  was  entered  into 
between  Barbee  and  Smith,  book  agents  in  Nashville, 
Tenn.,  and  E.  B.  Stahlman,  to  collect  the  aforesaid 
Methodist  Publishing  House  Claim,  and  they  agreed 
to  pay  him  35  per  cent  of  whatever  amount  he  could 
get  out  of  Congress. 

The  parties  also  agreed  to  keep  the  contract  a  se- 
cret. On  March  7th,  1898,  Barbee  and  Smith,  in  a 
telegram  to  Senator  Pasco,  of  Florida,  said  that  the 
"statement  that  Stahlman  was  to  get  40  per  cent  was 
untrue  and  you  are  hereby  authorized  to  deny  it." 
Pasco  had  written  them  that  a  "slanderous  report" 
was  prevailing  that  Stahlman  was  to  get  as  much  as 
40  per  cent  and  thus  they  replied. 

So  far  as  known  this  indirect  falsehood  was  the 
start  of  the  disreputable  lying  that  later  prevailed  be- 
fore the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 

On  March  7,  1898,  Senator  Bate  of  Tennessee  wired 
Barbee  and  Smith  that  if  Stahlman  was  to  get  40  per 
cent  or  any  other  fee  it  would  endanger  the  passage  of 
the  bill  in  the  Senate.  Barbee  and  Smith  wired :  ' '  The 
statement  is  untrue  and  you  are  hereby  authorized  to 
deny  it."  Twenty  days  afterward  the  bill  became  a 
law,  and  eight  days  later  they  paid  Stahlman  the 
thirty-five  per  cent,  amounting  to  one  hundred  thou- 
sand and  eight  hundred  dollars,  out  of  money  paid 
by  check  on  treasury  of  the  United  States. 

The  agents  of  a  great  church,  in  a  matter  affect- 
ing the  whole  church,  sent  deceptive  messages,  which 
did  deceive  senators  when  the  claim  was  acted  upon. 
The  messages  were  designed  to  deceive  and  were  mani- 
festly untrue.  Nevertheless  the  book  agents  and  the 
book  committee  were  the  persons  who  deceived  the 
senate  and  accepted  the  claim  money,  and  these  facts 
and  the  lying  telegrams  were  published  afterwards 
in  the  Senate  proceedings,  and  were  all  laid  before  the 
Baltimore  General  Conference  which  began  its  sit- 
tings on  May  1st,  1898.  The  book  agents  made  their 
report  to  the  conference  and  the  book  committee  made 
its  report  to  the  conference  and.  Barbee  and  Smith 
were  re-elected  as  satisfactory  book  agents.  "We  had 
no  information  in  Georgia  as  to  how  and  why  the  Gen- 

159 


eral  Conference  covered  up  the  Stahlman  matter,  and 
the  delegates  consumed  nearly  a  month  in  official  de- 
liberations. 

About  the  time  that  the  delegates  began  to  scatter 
to  their  various  homes,  I  was  a  fellow  traveler  on  the 
W.  &  A.  R.  R.  with  Rev.  Joe  Jones,  elder  brother  of 
Rev.  Sam  P.  Jones.  The  latter  was  a  delegate  to 
General  Conference  from  the  church  in  Cartersville, 
to  which  I  had  belonged  for  nearly  half  a  century. 
Rev.  Joe  Jones  had  been  a  school  pupil  of  mine,  also 
Rev.  Sam  P.  Jones,  in  the  strenuous  days,  immediately 
succeeding  the  war.  As  we  chatted  together  on  the 
train,  Joe  gave  me  to  understand  that  the  General 
Conference  had  done  a  dirty  piece  of  business  accept- 
ing the  publishing  house  claim  money,  paying  more 
than  a  third  of  the  money  to  the  lobbyist,  E.  B.  Stahl- 
man, after  the  book  agents  had  lied  about  giving  any 
fee  to  anybody,  etc. 

As  soon  as  I  could  get  to  my  writing  desk  I  wrote 
to  a  Tennessee  editor,  and  asked  for  information,  and 
had  a  prompt  reply.  The  letter  was  dated  May  24, 
1898.  "We  cannot  get  an  airing  on  this  matter  in  the 
secular  press  here,  unless  it  is  first  started  elsewhere. 
In  interest  of  common  decency  and  honesty  I  suggest 
that  you  write  up  the  matter  and  put  it  in  Atlanta 
Journal  in  your  own  way  and  that  will  open  the  ball. ' ' 

On  May  26,  1898,  I  had  the  following  from  Mr.  Ca- 
biness  of  Atlanta  Journal.  "Your  letter  received  and 
will  appear  in  the  Journal.  I  return  the  enclosure  as 
suggested.  The  matter  is  even  worse  than  I  thought 
it  was,  and  smacks  so  perfectly  of  the  worldly  lobby- 
ist, that  I  do  not  see  how  the  church  can  come  out  of 
it  with  any  credit." 

Some  one  in  Atlanta,  Ga.,  sent  a  dispatch  to  Wash- 
ington (City)  Post  on  May  27  that  "Mrs.  W.  H.  Fel- 
ton,  wife  of  ex-Congressman  Felton,  and  one  of  the 
leaders  of  state  W.  C.  T.  U.,  had  declared  that  a  large 
amount  of  the  claim  money  had  been  paid  to  a  lobby- 
ist, and  that  Barbee  and  Smith  had  sent  a  telegram  to 
Senator  Bate,  of  Tennessee,  that  no  claim  agent  was  to 
receive  anything  from  the  amount." 

160 


My  article  to  Atlanta  Journal  was  written  May  25, 
and  promptly  appeared  in  that  paper,  with  a  large 
heading  and  the  following  preface:  "Mrs.  Felton  pro- 
tests. She  has  written  a  card  to  the  Journal  in  which 
she  sharply  criticizes  the  church  authority  for  the 
methods  used  in  securing  the  war  claim.  Mrs.  Felton 
charges  the  preachers  with  using  the  arts  and  tricks 
of  lobbyists  to  rob  the  taxpayers.  Dr.  Love  joy  is  a 
member  of  the  book  committee  of  the  conference.  An 
effort  was  made  to  see  Dr.  Love  joy  and  procure  from 
him  a  statement,  but  it  was  stated  he  had  not  yet 
returned  from  Baltimore.  Mrs.  Felton 's  letter  is 
given  in  full  in  another  column." 

I  now  append  the  letter : 


"MRS.  FELTON  SAYS  THE  CHURCH    PAID  ENORMOUS 
LOBBY   FEES. 

"She  Charges   That  Over  $100,000  of  the   Fund   Voted  for 

Congress  Went  to  Claim  Agents — A  Sensational 

Card. 


"To  the  Editor  of  The  Journal: 

' '  On  March  8,  1898,  the  bill  appropriating  $288,000  as  a  war 
claim  demanded  by  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, 
passed  the  senate. 

"While  the  debate  ■was  in  progress  Senator  Tillman,  of  South 
Carolina,  asked  if  a  large  sum  was  not  to  be  paid  out  of  this 
claim,  if  passed,  to  attorneys. 

' '  Senator  Bate,  of  Tennessee,  arose  with  a  telegram  in  his 
hand,  received  from  Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith,  book  agents,  who 
brought  the  claim  before  congress,  as  the  representatives  of  the 
church.  Senator  Bate  said :  '  On  Saturday  last,  when  I  heard 
the  report  that  claim  agents  would  get  a  large  proportion  of 
that  money,  I  sat  down  and  wrote  Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith.  I 
wished  to  have  in  my  possession  a  statement  from  them  which 
I  could  use,  either  in  private  or  on  the  floor  of  the  senate,  if 
necessary,  and  yesterday  morning  I  got  this  reply:  'Letter 
of  5th  received.  The  statement  is  untrue,  and  you  are  hereby 
authorized  to  deny  it. ' 

"Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith  are  full-grown  and  21.  They  told 
the  truth  or  they  told  a  falsehood.  But  delegates  went  to  the 
General  conference  bent  on  finding  out  what  was  done  by  Bar- 
bee &  Smith,  and  I  am  reliably  informed  that  the  book  agents ' 
report  to  the  General  conference  admits  the  payment  of  one 
hundred  thousand  and  eight  hundred  dollars  ($100,800)   to  the 

161 


attorney,  or  lobbyist,  or  claim  agent,  who  according  to  previous 
contract,  was  to  get  35  per  cent  of  what  was  obtained  from  the 
government.  The  General  conference  has  adjourned  and  the 
salaries  of  Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith  have  been  raised  from 
$2,500  to  $3,000. 

' '  No  debate  concerning  this  matter  was  reported  in  Georgia 
papers  during  the  session  of  congress.  If  any  objection  was 
made,  inquiry  instituted  or  reproof  given  there  was  no  men- 
tion of  it. 

"I  said  nothing  during  the  Livingston-Felder  campaign, 
when  this  lobby  work  was  en  tapis.  I  had  no  concern  as  to 
whether  Congressman  Livingston  helped  the  claim  agent  or 
the  claim  agent  helped  him.  I  didn  't  care  a  stiver  whether 
Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith  got  down  to  lobby  levels  or  not — and 
I  confess  I  was  not  surprised  to  find  some  of  our  Methodists 
in  authority  in  such  close  pursuit  of  the  dollars,  at  all  times 
and  in  all  places.  But  when  the  General  conference  met  and 
adjourned  and  approved  the  payment  of  35  per  cent  of  that 
war  claim  to  claim  agents  after  that  telegram  of  denial  was 
recorded  in  the  United  States  senate,  I  felt  the  time  had  come 
for  one  humble  Methodist  to  wash  her  hands  and  shake  her 
skirts  clear  of  that  nefarious  proceeding,  as  officially  recorded 
in  the  United  States  senate. 

' '  The  claim  agent 's  profits  are  his  legitimate  property  and 
custom  gives  him  all  he  can  make  if  he  can  find  people  willing 
to  employ  him,  but  I  do  not  forget  that  the  present  constitu- 
tion of  the  state  of  Georgia  makes  lobbying  a  crime  before 
the  courts,  punishable  with  fine  and  imprisonment. 

' '  I  think  the  time  has  come  for  the  Georgia  Methodists  to 
rise  up  and  ask  the  legislature  to  repeal  that  statute,  or  other- 
wise ask  the  United  States  government  to  receive  again  that 
war  claim  money  obtained  under  false  pretenses.  It  is  bad 
enough  for  politicians  to  condone  lobbying  but  it  is  a  prepos- 
terous business  for  preachers  to  engage  in,  and  they  should 
be  told  of  it,  in  very  plain  speech  and  with  more  direct  action 
later. 

"I  have  read  very  carefully  the  debate  that  took  place  on 
March  8,  at  the  time  when  Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith  exploited 
that  telegram  of  positive  denial.  The  Methodist  church  was  put 
on  her  knees  before  congress,  begging  for  money  to  keep  her 
worn-out  preachers  and  their  widows  out  of  the  county  poor- 
house.  That  beggar  role  was  worked  for  all  it  was  worth.  And 
now  when  I  find  out  that  the  cdaim  agent  was  pumping  up  tears 
for  that  supposed  class  of  our  citizens,  meanwhile  holding  a  con- 
tract that  he  should  get  more  than  one  dollar  every  time  he 
pumped  up  three  out  of  the  strong  box  of  the  nation,  I  feel 
as  if  the  great  Southern  Methodist  church  has  been  dragged 
through  the  mire  and  filth  of  humiliation  and  falsehood  to  very 
little  purpose.  I  am  ashamed  that  so  much  was  done  to  humili- 
ate, and  I  loathe  the  falsehood  that  made  their  success  possible. 
I  have  no  disposition  to  discuss  the  claim  agent,  nor  do  I  care 
whether  he  got  the  pay  out  of  the  mission  fund,  the  school  book 

162 


fund  or  whether  the  35  per  cent  was  delivered  at  the  very  coun- 
ter at  which  Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith  cashed  that  check  on  the 
United  States  treasury  for  $288,000. 

"But  I  do  care  that  I,  in  common  with  the  rank  and  file  of 
Southern  Methodists,  are  now  placed  before  the  United  States 
senate  in  the  attitude  of  swindlers,  because  the  avowal  was  de- 
cided and  complete  that  no  money  would  be  paid  to  claim 
agents,  attorneys  or  lobbyists  for  pushing  that  war  claim  on  the 
present  congress. 

' '  That  money  which  was  paid  afterwards  to  claim  agents 
should  be  refunded,  in  honest  fairness.  It  will  burn  whatever 
it  touches  until  restitution  is  made.  The  Lord  Almighty  does 
not  do  business  after  that  fashion.  He  is  not  so  poor  as  to 
need  the  contemptible  trick  of  pleading  poverty  to  enrich  his 
preachers  in  any  such  style. 

"I  do  not  blame  Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith  for  their  official 
part  in  this  matter.  Doubtless  they  obeyed  their  superiors  in 
office — however  much  I  may  contemn  their  individual  weak- 
ness in  doing  evil  that  supposed  profit  might  follow,  but  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  General  conference  in  failing  to 
rectify  the  mistake  of  these  persons  has  placed  the  entire 
responsibility  upon  the  body  itself.  It  is  now  their  act.  Their 
agents,  Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith,  have  been  protected,  and  the 
odium  of  that  false  telegram  lies  at  the  door  of  the  only  legis- 
lative organization  of  the  Methodist  church. 

' '  Of  course  such  people  have  nothing  in  common  with  tem- 
perance women.  Of  course  they  turn  the  back  of  their  hands 
to  evangelists. 

"In  the  light  of  that  telegram  to  Senator  Bate,  by  which 
senators  from  forty-odd  states  were  led  astray  from  the  facts 
and  the  truth,  the  controlling  majority  of  that  General  con- 
ference was  better  pleased  with  lobbying  than  temperance  wo- 
men or  revival  sermons. 

' '  It  will  be  sometime  before  the  stain  of  such  a  falsehood 
will  be  eradicated  from  the  official  pages  of  our  church  and 
our  national  reputation.  The  time  to  remedy  the  evil  has  surely 
passed,  because  that  lying  telegram  has  been  assumed  and  con- 
doned by  the  General  conference  at  Baltimore.  If  protests 
were  privately  made,  the  edict  prevailed — 'Division  and  si- 
lence. ' 

"I  fancy  that  august  body  in  session,  with  the  odor  of  that 
Barbee-Smith  telegram  in  their  nostrils,  with  saintly  attitude 
and  pious  ejaculations,  as  the  claim  agent  raked  in  the  35  per 
cent !     Alas !  Alas ! 

"If  those  senators  who  heard  Senator  Bate  read  it,  could 
have  attended  some  of  their  discussions  as  to  where  the  re- 
mainder could  be  placed,  to  make  most  noise,  either  in  China 
or  Nashville,  they  would  have  wondered  where  were  the  starv- 
ing old  preachers  and  agonized  widows  who  figured  before  the 
senate  after  the  fashion  of  Cuban  half-breed  reconcentrados 
when  jingoism  was  in  the  political  saddle  some  two  months 
ago.    What  a  spectacle  for  men  and  angels! 

163 


"And  what  a  game  for  preachers  to  play  at!  Actually  raid- 
ing the  United  States  treasury  by  the  arts  and  tricks  of  claim 
agents  (the  new  name  for  lobbyists)   to  rob  the  tax  payers! 

' '  And  Messrs.  Barbee  &  Smith  are  to  get  $500  each  annually 
for  being  so  sharp  in  politics!  Thirty-five  per  cent  to  the 
claim  agent — $1,000  per  annum  to  these  sharpers  in  canonicals, 
$50,000  for  a  similar  book  concern  plant  in  China  (and  as  much 
to  some  other  schemes  far  and  near)  this  war  claim  vanishes, 
like  '  butter  before  the  sun '  and  we  have  nothing  left  but  that 
malodorous  incident  in  the  United  States  senate,  where  Metho- 
dist preachers  added  falsehood  to  trickery  to  get  in  reach  of 
the  money  to  be  thus  spent  in  ventures  and  experiments,  like 
other  tricksters  and  traders  in  politics.  Alas  for  the  honor  and 
good  name  of  the  Methodist  church! 

"MRS.  W.  H.  FELTON. 

"  Cartersville,  May  25,  1898." 

Before  this  article  was  mailed  to  Atlanta  Journal,  I 
wrote  a  polite  note  to  U.  S.  Senator  H.  C.  Lodge,  of 
Massachusetts,  and  told  him  of  the  facts  which  I  had 
gathered,  and  very  soon  afterward  I  received  a  reply, 
thanking  me,  and  Senator  Lodge  next  day  rose  in  the 
Senate  and  called  for  an  investigation  and  the  battle 
was  on.  The  "Washington  Post  printed  a  communica- 
tion from  me,  as  soon  as  I  saw  what  a  Methodist  pas- 
tor of  that  city  had  said  of  my  article  in  the  Journal, 
and  I  reprint  the  same  in  this  connection : 


"METHODIST  WAR  CLAIMS. 

"Mrs.  W.  H.  Felton  Wants  a  Full  Investigation  of  the  Matter. 

' '  Editor  Post :  I  find  in  Saturday 's  Post  a  dispatch  from 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  in  which  my  name  is  mentioned,  accompanied  by  a 
card  from  Rev.  Mr.  Duffy,  in  denial  of  the  statement  that  an 
immense  sum  was  paid  in  lobby  fees  as  soon  as  the  United 
States  government  gave  the  Southern  Methodist  Church  $288,- 
000  as  a  war  claim.  If  Rev.  Mr.  Duffy  had  examined  the  re- 
port of  the  book  agents — Messrs.  Barbee  and  Smith — made  to 
the  late  General  Conference  at  Baltimore,  he  would  have  curbed 
his  denial,  and  perhaps  remained  a  wiser  man  in  regard  to  his 
church  affairs.  In  my  opinion,  there  is  no  set  of  men  in  the 
United  States  who  are  so  prompt  to  resent  any  supposed  insult 
to  its  ministry  as  the  Southern  Methodist  preachers,  but  I  also 
believe  there  is  no  set  of  men  under  the  shining  sun  who  are  so 
easily  imposed  upon  by  their  brethren  in  the  pulpit.  I  have 
been  a  Southern  Methodist  for  over  forty  years,  and  I  have  had 
opportunity  to  know. 

' '  That  war  claim  was  passed  through  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate after  Senators  were  solemnly  assured  that  not  a  dollar  would 
be   paid   out   in    fees   to   attorneys    or   claim   agents.      Senator 

164 


Pasco  and  Senator  Bate  produced  telegrams  from  Messrs.  Bar- 
bee  and  Smith  denying  the  report  that  any  money  would  be 
paid  out  to  any  such  person  or  persons.  Zion  's  Outlook,  a  re- 
ligious paper,  printed  in  Nashville,  in  an  editorial  declares  that 
the  report  of  Messrs.  Barbee  and  Smith  to  the  General  Confer- 
ence shows  that  35  per  cent.,  or  $100,800,  was  paid  to  such  a 
lobbyist,  claim  agent,  or  so-called  attorney  as  soon  as  that  claim 
was  passed  through  Congress.  A  delegate  from  my  section  to 
the  General  Conference  assures  me  that  he  personally  examined 
that  report,  and  that  fact  is  disclosed,  namely,  that  Messrs. 
Barbee  and  Smith  did  report  such  a  payment  to  the  conference 
and  the  book  committee  of  the  conference  admitted  they  had  ad- 
vised payment  to  its  claim  agent  before  Congress.  Now,  with 
all  deference  to  Mr.  Duffy,  I  think  the  United  States  Senate 
should  be  informed  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  such  declara- 
tions. 

' '  For  the  honor  of  the  Southern  Methodist  Church,  I  would 
be  glad  to  know  that  the  truth  had  been  uttered  on  the  floor 
of  the  Senate  when  Messrs.  Bate,  Pasco,  and  Morgan  gave 
such  solemn  assurances  that  not  a  dollar  would  be  paid  to  lob- 
byists or  any  other  sort  of  an  agent  in  this  matter.  Lobby- 
ing has  been  the  curse  of  legislation,  both  State  and  national,  in 
these  latter  days,  and  while  it  is  difficult  to  find  the  guilty  par- 
ties those  who  contract  with  lobbyists,  as  well  as  the  lobbyists 
themselves,  there  should  be  no  difficulty  in  getting  at  the  truth 
of  this  matter  from  the  preachers  of  the  Southern  Methodist 
Church.  Goodby  to  religion  or  pulpit  influence  when  ministers 
get  down  to  lobby  levels,  and  especially  when  they  can  send 
telegrams  containing  incorrect  assertions  to  such  a  body  as  the 
United  States  Senate,  such  as  were  sent  to  Senators  Bate  and 
Pasco. 

' '  If  Messrs.  Barbee  and  Smith,  the  book  agents  of  the  church, 
sent  a  misleading  telegram  to  either  Senator  Bate  or  Senator 
Pasco,  those  Senators  owe  it  to  themselves  and  the  dignity  of 
the  Senate  to  find  out  the  facts  as  here  indicated,  and  relieve 
themselves  from  odium  by  exposing  those  who  used  them  for 
such  an  infamous  purpose,  and  for  obtaining  money  from  the 
government  under  false  pretenses. 

"As  an  humble  Georgia  Methodist,  I  wash  my  hands  of  this 
transaction,  as  one  of  the  membership,  and  I  enter  my  protest 
against  keeping  that  money  thus  obtained.  Politics  are  con- 
fessed to  be  a  dirty  business  in  the  main,  but  preachers  and 
preaching  should  either  be  cleaner  in  men  and  methods  or  the 
world  should  be  relieved  of  both — for  a  swindler  and  hypocrite 
is  less  tolerable  than  a  plain  swindler  to  deal  with.  And 
while  I  am  at  it,  I  want  to  know  if  the  profits  of  that  Southern 
Methodist  book  concern  in  Nashville,  Tenn.,  are  applied  to  and 
'  distributed  to  all  alike  in  the  Northern  church  and  the  South- 
ern church — to  the  Republicans  and  Populists,  and  Democrats 
and  Prohibitionists,  all  are  treated  alike,'  as  declared  by  Sen- 
ator Bate  in  his  artpeal  for  this  claim — before  the  Senate? 

165 


"If  the  Northern  Methodist  preachers  get  any  of  that  su- 
perannuated fund,  I  wish  one  of  them  would  rise  up  and  admit 
it. 

"I  do  know  that  with  a  long  and  varied  experience  with  the 
people  in  this  country — that  statement  boldly  made  (and  doubt- 
less made  innocently  by  Senator  Bate),  astonished  me  not  a 
little. 

' '  If  that  book  concern  in  Nashville  has  been  supporting  the 
superannuated  preachers  of  the  Northern  church — their  wives 
and  orphans — some  of  us  never  heard  of  the  fact  before — 
never. 

"Messrs.  Editors:  I  beg  for  honest  dealing  in  this  matter. 
In  the  name  of  God  and  humanity  do  let  us  retain  faith  in  the 
pulpit,  if  it  is  possible.  I  am  mortified,  ashamed  and  humiliat- 
ed that  the  Southern  Methodist  Church  is  placed  in  its  present 
attitude  before  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  I  trust  Sen- 
ators will  demand  a  prompt  investigation,  and  with  an  au  re- 
voir  to  innocent  and  ignorant,  Mr.  Duffy,  I  am, 
' '  Yours  respectfully, 

"MKS.  W.  H.  FELTON. 

"Cartersville,  Ga." 

I  also  append  Mr.  Duffy's  statement,  showing  that 
many  members  of  the  General  Conference  were  kept 
in  the  dark  and  also  showing  that  Dr.  Barbee  had 
deliberately  deceived  Rev.  Mr.  Duffy,  pastor  of  the 
only  Southern  Methodist  church  in  Washington  City. 
Mr.  Duffy  could  go  to  Baltimore  any  hour  in  the  day 
to  attend  conference  sessions,  and  his  testimony  is 
valuable  to  show  how  such  matters  could  be  considered 
and  passed  without  giving  information  to  the  dele- 
gates of  a  religious  body. 


"REV.  J.  W.  DUFFY'S  STATEMENT. 

"Eev.  Jefferson  W.  Duffey,  of  this  city,  pastor  of  the  Mount 
Vernon  Place  M.  E.  Church,  South,  who  attended  the  recent 
conference  at  Baltimore,  denied  that  there  was  any  talk  over  the 
disposition  of  the  claim  recently  allowed  by  Congress.  He  said 
that  while  he  did  not  attend  all  the  meetings,  he  surely  would 
have  heard  the  rumors  had  there  been  anything  in  the  air  in 
regard  to  the  matter.  'Whether  Mr.  Stahlman,  who  has  been 
very  active  in  pushing  the  work,  is  a  member  of  our  church 
or  not  I  do  not  know,'  said  Dr.  Duffey,  'but  it  was  my  under- 
standing from  a  talk  I  had  with  Mr.  Barbee  some  months  ago, 
that  he  was  to  be  allowed  only  the  expense  incurred  in  carrying 
on  the  work.  One  day  I  was  told  that  the  expenses  had  been 
$100  for  telegrams,  but  the  nature  of  these  dispatches  I  did  not 
ascertain. 

166 


' '  The  gentleman,  I  think,  deserves  a  great  deal  of  credit  for 
his  success,  as  the  matter  had  been  on  the  dockets  for  a  good 
many  years,  but  it  has  always  been  my  understanding  that  he 
was  not  being  paid  for  the  work.  Messrs.  Barbee  and  Smith, 
who  have  the  matter  in  charge,  have  too  much  discretion  to  use 
any  but  honorable  means  to  secure  the  claim. ' ' 

To  fully  explain  the  enormity  of  the  deception  used 
by  the  book  agents,  in  support  of  the  war  claim,  I  will 
also  append  in  this  connection,  what  was  said  by  Sen- 
ators Bate  and  Pasco,  when  the  vote  was  about  to  be 
cast,  on  March  8,  1898. 


"DEBATE   IN  THE  SENATE. 

' '  Mr.  Tillman — Before  the  Senator  takes  his  seat  I  should 
like  him  to  tell  us  what  he  knows  about  the  disposition  of  this 
money,  and  whether  the  attorneys  are  to  get  any  of  it. 

"Mr.  Bate — I  take  pleasure  in  saying  that  as  I  heard  such 
a  rumor  whispered  around  yesterday  or  the  day  before,  I  re- 
ceived a  dispatch,  as  also  did  the  Chairman  of  the  sub-eommit- 
tee  of  the  Committee  on  Claims,  from  Barbee  and  Smith,  who 
are  the  head  of  the  concern,  stating  that  there  was  not  a  word 
of  truth  in  the  statement  that  the  fund  was  to  be  diverted  in 
any  such  way.  A  great  deal  of  work  has  been  done  about  this 
case,  but  this  is  a  grand,  great  church,  and  the  country  is  full 
of  sympathy  for  it;  and  men  of  intelligence  want  to  see  this 
church  sustained,  and  they  think  the  claim  a  proper  and  just 
one,  and  that  it  should  be  paid. 

"Mr.  Tillman — Then  the  money  is  to  go  to  the  church,  and 
not  to  attorneys? 

' '  Mr.  Bate — It  is  to  go  to  the  church,  and  it  is  to  become  a 
part  of  the  plant,  if  I  may  so  speak,  and  the  proceeds  of  it 
are  to  be  given  over  to  these  unfortunate  preachers.  That  is 
the  way  of  it. 

' '  Now,  Mr.  President,  I  am  just  upon  the  threshold  of  the 
facts  in  this  case,  for  they  are  numerous;  but  the  hour  is  late, 
and  I  do  not  want  to  detain  the  Senate,  and  we  want  to  get  a 
vote  this  evening.  If,  however,  there  is  any  question  desired  to 
be  asked  by  any  Senator,  I  will  take  pleasure  in  answering  it; 
otherwise  I  propose  to  now  leave  the  matter  to  the  Senate. 

' '  Mr.  Pasco — As  to  the  question  asked  by  the  Senator  from 
South  Carolina  (Mr.  Tillman),  it  is  proper  to  say  that  I  heard 
a  rumor  that  was  whispered  about  the  Senate  ehamber  during 
the  last  few  days  to  the  effect  that  some  claim  agents  would  get 
a  very  large  proportion  of  this  amount.  On  Saturday  last,  when 
I  heard  that  report,  I  sat  down  and  wrote  Messrs.  Barbee  and 
Smith.  I  was  thoroughly  satisfied  that  the  report  had  no  foun- 
dation whatever  in  fact,  but  I  stated  the  matter  at  length  to 
them,  and  stated  that  I  wished  to  have  in  my  possession  a  state- 
ment from  them  which  I  could  use  either  in  private  conversation 

167 


or  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  if  necessary;  and  yesterday  morn- 
ing I  got  this  reply  to  my  letter : 

' '  '  Letter  of  5th  received.  The  statement  is  untrue,  and  you 
are  hereby  authorized  to  deny  it. ' 

' '  I  made  the  statement  fully  in  the  letter,  which  set  forth 
that  some  agents  here  would  get  a  very  large  percentage  of  the 
amount.  I  knew  that  was  not  possible,  because  they  had  no  au- 
thority to  make  such  a  bargain.  I  knew  that  they  had  too  much 
discretion  to  make  such  a  bargain,  of  course,  and  I  suggested 
to  them  that  they  should  give  me  the  statement  which  they  have, 
and  I  am  satisfied  that  there  is  no  foundation  whatever  for  the 
report. 

It  is  also  fair  and  eminently  just  that  Senator  Bate 
should  be  quoted  from  the  Senate  records.  Replying 
to  a  question  from  Senator  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts, 
Mr.  Bate  said :  "  I  want  to  say  in  this  connection,  that 
this  fund  is  to  be  distributed  to  all  alike,  to  the  North- 
ern church  and  the  Southern  church,  to  the  Republi- 
cans and  Democrats,  to  Populists  and  Prohibitionists, 
all  treated  alike.  It  goes  to  the  poor,  broken  down 
superannuated  Methodist  preachers  and  it  cannot  be 
diverted  into  any  other  channel,  because  the  organic 
law  of  the  church  forbids  it." 

Senator  Lodge  rose  and  attempted  to  amend  the 
bill  by  forbiding  the  payment  of  any  sum  to  claim 
agents  above  five  thousand  dollars,  and  it  was  voted 
down,  because  iCno  claim  agent  would  get  a  single  dol- 
lar of  the  claim  money."  It  made  me  smile  to  see 
how  Mr.  Stahlman,  through  his  friends  in  the  Senate, 
rushed  to  that  conclusion,  to  prevent  the  five-thou- 
sand-dollar limit.  Having  adventured  so  far,  with 
well  concocted  falsehoods,  it  didn't  hurt  to  tell  an- 
other. 

These  statements  appeared  in  the  Congressional 
Record. 

These  published  statements  were  carried  to  General 
Conference,  as  before  stated,  and  it  is  astounding  to 
know  that  the  members  of  the  General  Conference 
covered  up,  condoned  and  tacitly  endorsed  these  false- 
hoods, before  the  Senate. 

Before  closing  this  article  it  is  well  to  state  that  the 
investigation  called  for  by  Senator  Lodge  soon  began 
to  hear  the  testimony  of  various  witnesses.  Every 
day  brought  out  more  humiliating  disclosures.     Mr. 

168 


Stahlman  was  made  to  testify  and  when  fairly  cor- 
nered, confessed  that  he,  "like  Peter,"  had  told  a 
falsehood.  It  is  presumable  that  he  did  not  lose  any 
sleep  over  the  effects  of  the  lie ;  he  had  substantial 
gains  tucked  away  in  his  pocket  and  he  had  nothing 
to  lose  in  reputation,  with  those  who  heard  his  con- 
fession or  with  the  crowd  that  paid  him. 

The  Methodist  Church  South  is  still  suffering  and 
will  continue  to  suffer  the  effects  of  this  episode  in 
ecclesiastical  jobbery.  The  chairman  of  the  book 
committee  has  been  thrust  upon  the  church  as  a  bish- 
op, although  it  is  understood  that  he  was  the  adviser 
of  Barbee,  who  was  the  active  member  as  the  book 
agent.  The  money,  what  was  left,  (less  than  two- 
thirds),  was  not  applied  to  the  relief  of  republican  or 
democrat  or  populist  or  prohibitionist,  to  Northern 
preachers  along  with  Southern  preachers.  The  salaries 
of  Barbee  and  Smith  were  raised  and  so  far  as  known 
the  money  that  was  gained  in  this  disreputable  way 
has  been  like  ' '  Achan  's  wedge  of  gold, ' '  nothing  but  a 
burden  to  the  organization. 

After  many  pros  and  cons,  the  bishops  decided  to 
keep  the  money  and  when  the  next  General  Conference 
met  in  Dallas,  Texas,  the  majority  went  with  the  bish- 
ops and  in  conclusion  I  can  very  easily  declare, 

' '  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Epheseans. ' ' 

P.  S. — I  had  a  letter  from  one  of  the  most  promi- 
nent members  of  the  North  Georgia  Conference.  "I 
can  give  you  some  facts,  not  known  to  the  public,  some 
of  them  in  black  and  white.  *  *  That  Barbee  and 
Smith  demanded  an  investigation  at  the  hands  of  the 
General  Conference  is  false !  Nor  was  the  labored  re- 
port ever  put  before  the  General  Conference — only 
seen  by  the  committee  on  public  interests.  The  Gen- 
eral Conference  was  systematically  kept  in  the  dark. 
I  have  a  letter  from  one  high  in  authority  who  admits 
he  throttled  one  of  our  North  Georgia  Conference  del- 
egates, who  was  about  to  spring  it  before  the  General 
Conference,  and  says  he  would  do  it  again." 

(Such  people  will  bear  watching.  While  I  am 
here  to  do  it,  I  propose  to  place  my  share  in  the  ex- 
posure, where  other  people  can  see  it.) 

169 


I  addressed  a  letter  to  Hon.  H.  C.  Lodge,  and  his 
secretary  acknowledged  the  receipt.  Mr.  Lodge  in- 
troduced the  resolution  to  investigate  the  matter  im- 
mediately and  the  exposure  was  complete. 

The  House  of  Representatives  had  passed  up  the 
claims  without  hesitation  under  Mr.  Stahlman's  direc- 
tion and  his  Georgia  troops  fought  nobly.  It  was  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  which  called  a  halt.  I 
will  not  attempt  to  copy  here  the  criticism  that  fol- 
lowed the  exposure  in  the  Senate,  or  the  order  given 
by  the  various  conferences  in  Southern  Methodism  to 
return  that  ill-gotten  money  to  the  U.  S.  treasury. 
They  are  all  matters  of  official  record  and  cannot  be 
questioned  or  denied. 


ADDRESS   BEFORE   THE   GEORGIA   LEGISLA- 
TURE, NOVEMBER,  1901. 


After  the  legislature  assembled  I  received  an  offi- 
cial communication  from  that  body  asking  my  ac- 
ceptance of  an  invitation  to  address  them  in  joint 
session  on  the  subject  of  our  common  schools.  Per- 
haps it  was  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  state 
that  a  woman  was  accorded  such  an  invitation.  It 
gave  me  delight  to  signify  my  acceptance.  A  reporter 
from  one  of  the  daily  papers  thus  discoursed  on  the 
meeting  and  the  address : 

[When  the  invitation  was  given,  it  is  well  to  state  a  zealous 
legislator  interposed  to  say  that  the  time  of  the  body  was  too 
precious  and  expensive  to  waste  either,  on  permitting  a  woman 
to  address  the  legislature.] 

"Mrs.  W.  H.  Felton,  of  Cartersville,  addressed  a 
joint  session  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Georgia  in 
the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  A  splendid 
audience  greeted  Mrs.  Felton  when  she  was  intro- 
duced. Every  seat  in  the  gallery  was  taken  and  every 
seat  on  the  floor  was  occupied.  There  were  many 
ladies  present,  and  on  account  of  lack  of  room  in  the 
gallery,  many  were  forced  to  stand.     The  members 

170 


of  the  house  and  senate  rose  and  stood  as  Mrs.  Felton 
walked  down  the  aisle  to  the  speaker's  rostrum.  Gov. 
Candler  occupied  a  chair  on  the  rostrum.  President 
Clark  Howell,  of  the  Senate,  introduced  Mrs.  Felton 
with  the  following  words: 

' '  There  is  a  great  deal  of  discussion  and  contention 
as  to  who  is  the  smartest  man  in  Georgia,  but  it  is 
universally  conceded  that  the  woman  who  is  to  ad- 
dress you  today  is  the  brightest  and  smartest  woman 
in  the  state.  I  have  the  honor  of  presenting  to  you 
Mrs.  W.  H.  Felton,  of  the  County  of  Bartow." 

Mrs.  Felton  advanced  to  the  front  of  the  speaker's 
stand  and  said :  ' '  Old  age  is  susceptible  to  compli- 
ments.    I  will  gladly  swallow  the  taffy  just  handed 

to  me." 

[I  had  only  a  few  minutes  to  glance  over  that  crowded 
hall  and  woman-like  I  wondered  if  I  could  possibly  acquit 
myself  to  the  expectation  of  my  friends  in  that  audience, 
and  my  invalid  husband  at  home.  I  had  for  a  long  time 
been  writing  about  things  that  I  believed  the  people  of 
Georgia  needed,  and  now  I  had  a  chance  to  talk  to  the  law 
makers.  Would  I  make  good?  I  had  no  time  to  appreciate 
compliments — I  was  thinking.  I  made  up  my  mind  to 
speak  for  the  poor  white  children  of  the  state,  with  em- 
phasis. Only  a  woman  without  a  vote,  I  had  a  hard  task 
before  me,  so  I  forgot  about  my  appearance  or  whether  my 
bonnet  was  on  straight  and  tried  to  do  my  best] 

"After  thanking  the  General  Assembly  for  this 
great  and  unwonted  privilege,  I  must  tell  you  why  I 
gladly  accepted  your  invitation  to  talk  to  you  concern- 
ing the  'Infirmities  of  our  Public  School  System,'  as 
applied  to  the  common  schools  of  the  state.  You  are 
guardians  of  all  the  public  interests  of  Georgia.  You 
have  been  selected,  yes  elected  by  the  people,  to  protect 
these  interests.  It  is  your  bounden  duty  to  perform 
these  tasks  to  the  limit  of  your  ability.  As  I  speak 
to  you  you  will  understand  that  I  am  a  person  with- 
out any  political  influence.  I  have  no  vote  to  give 
any  one  of  you,  I  cannot  occupy  any  public  office,  and 
it  seems  I  am  only  a  small  taxpayer  and  nothing  else, 
so  far  as  I  am  estimated  by  law  makers  of  Georgia. 

171 


Last  spring,  sitting  quietly  in  my  own  home,  en- 
gaged busily  in  domestic  sewing,  a  very  pretty  young 
girl  walked  in  and  asked  for  the  loan  of  a  small  cook- 
ing vessel.  She  said  she,  with  her  father  and  small 
brother,  had  walked  from  a  county  lying  on  the  Ten- 
nessee line  and  they  were  seeking  work,  hoeing  cotton. 
She  was  a  white  girl  with  pleasing  features.  At  some 
time  in  the  past  there  had  been  good  blood,  gentle 
raising,  because  the  indications  were  in  her  form  and 
face.  She  told  me  she  was  seventeen  years  old,  had 
never  been  out  of  Georgia,  and,  gentlemen,  she  had 
never  been  to  school  a  day  in  her  life.  She  was  born 
and  raised  in  a  county  that  had  thirty-nine  public 
school  teachers  last  year.  The  state  paid  out  in  her 
county  between  four  and  five  thousand  dollars  last 
year  to  schools  and  school  teachers  for  free  schools  to 
educate  just  such  as  this  girl.  Here  was  a  young 
white  woman  seventeen  years  old,  a  tramp  on  the 
public  highway,  who  had  never  received  one  cent  of 
this  money  in  her  life.  With  thirty-nine  public  school 
teachers  in  the  county  she  was  born  in,  and  had  al- 
ways lived  in,  with  a  plentiful  supply  of  tax  money 
to  pay  the  thirty-nine,  this  girl  had  never  gone  to 
school  a  day  in  her  life.  This  public  school  system 
was  in  force  when  she  was  born  and  has  been  in  force 
ever  since.  She  has  no  mother,  poor  child !  Her 
mother  lies  under  the  sod  and  this  child,  this  seven- 
teen-year-old white  girl,  was  over  a  hundred  miles 
from  her  home,  hunting  work  in  the  fields.  She  was 
being  dragged  along  by  a  no-account  father,  and  they 
had  barely  a  quilt  to  sleep  on,  until  I  provided  that 
girl  with  something  softer  for  her  own  use.  Then  and 
there  I  promised  myself  that  I  would,  in  the  fear  of 
God,  and  in  fear  of  nothing  less,  plead  that  girl's 
cause  in  the  newspapers,  before  public  schools,  wo- 
man's clubs,  in  temperance  meetings,  everywhere. 
Gentlemen,  I  thank  you  for  this  opportunity  to  plead 
her  cause  on  this  occasion. 

I  come  to  you  today  to  ask  you  face  to  face  why  that 
girl  had  no  educational  chance,  in  the  state  of  Geor- 
gia, that  spends  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars 
to  educate  just  such  as  she?    There  are  thousands  of 

172 


such  cases.  They  are  all  about  us.  I  hold  in  my 
hands  the  school  commissioner's  report,  made  to  the 
Governor  and  to  you,  gentlemen.    What  about  it? 

The  school  commissioner  says:  "Their  condition  is 
pitiful.  Apparently  they  can  do  nothing  but  hoe 
small  potatoes,  corn,  hang  together  a  few  rags  for 
clothes,  and  beat  their  dirty  linen  with  paddles.  Their 
homes  are  wretched  hovels,  their  surroundings  are 
forbidding  and  their  minds  are  sunken  in  a  kind  of 
pauperism  out  of  which  it  seems  impossible  to  arouse 
them." 

Here's  another  sentence.  "The  child  of  the  moun- 
tain districts  and  our  pine  plains  cannot  come  here 
to  lift  its  white  hand  for  a  way  of  escape."  Legisla- 
tors, here  is  an  aged  white  woman  in  your  presence 
today ;  I  lift  this  worn  white  hand  in  their  behalf  and 
I  dare  to  say  to  you  that  these  things  are  insupport- 
able, when  you  consider  the  vast  sums  of  money  taken 
from  the  taxpayers  to  furnish  education  to  these  chil- 
dren of  the  mountain  and  the  pine  plains.  Why  has 
not  this  money  reached  these  helpless  ones? 

When  this  invitation  to  address  you  was  passed  in 
both  House  and  Senate,  a  legislator  rose  to  complain 
at  the  waste  of  time  and  of  money  to  give  me  an  hour 
to  plead  for  these  helpless  ones,  in  this  hall.  Com- 
pare the  few  dollars  that  are  consumed  while  you  sit 
in  your  seats  to  hear  my  appeal ;  with  the  out-going 
flood  of  tax  money  that  was  taken  from  the  taxpayers 
at  the  limit  of  the  law,  and  fails  to  get  to  the  needy 
children  of  the  mountains  and  the  plains. 

Where  is  that  economical  gentleman  today  who  was 
willing  to  shut  out  from  your  presence  the  humble,  but 
earnest,  friend  who  couldn't  vote  against  him  if  she 
wanted  to  and  who  has  never  opened  his  mouth  to  call 
a  halt  on  this  egregious  waste  of  public  funds  while 
he  draws  his  four  dollars  a  day  from  the  state  treas- 
ury? I  never  cost  the  state  a  penny  in  my  whole  life, 
unless  you  decide  I  am  consuming  it  while  I  stand 
here  for  an  hour  or  less  to  tell  you  that  this  waste  of 
tax  money  is  an  atrocious  shame,  while  these  poor 
children  are  thus  deprived  of  its  benefits. 

173 


I  have  no  fault  to  find  with  the  officials  who  are  in 
charge  of  the  school  business  of  Georgia.  It  is  only 
their  business  to  execute  the  orders  of  the  Legislature, 
hire  the  teachers  and  disburse  the  money.  I  went,  by 
invitation,  before  the  Georgia  Educational  association 
last  June,  and  said  to  the  teachers  whom  I  respect 
and  honor,  what  I  am  now  going  to  say  to  you.  I 
shall  not  touch  upon  any  of  the  state's  educational 
interests  save  the  poor  common  schools  in  the  rural 
districts.  That  subject  is  gigantic.  Help  me  by  your 
sympathy.  I  have  been  a  real  friend  to  education  all 
my  life,  I  am  a  friend  today  of  good,  faithful  teach- 
ers as  I  have  ever  been,  and  what  I  say  of  the  system 
is  based  upon  what  I  know  personally,  and  from  what 
the  official  report  declares  and  what  the  Governor  tells 
you.  I  do  thank  Governor  Candler  that  he  dared  to 
tell  you  and  the  people  of  the  state  some  plain  facts 
on  this  line.  He  may  be  harshly  judged  for  doing 
it,  and  I  may  suffer  in  the  same  way. 

Gentlemen  of  the  General  Assembly,  we  know  full 
well  and  we  both  understand,  there  are  two  sides  to 
the  question  of  common  schools  in  Georgia,  namely, 
the  side  of  those  who  send  children  to  school,  and  of 
the  teachers  who  are  employed  by  the  state  to  teach 
the  schools,  and  the  commissioners  and  school  boards 
who  manage  and  disburse  the  school  fund,  and  the 
other  side  of  the  taxpayers  who  are  forced  by  the 
state's  demand  to  raise  this  school  fund,  to  be  thus 
disbursed  for  support  of  rural  schools.  Every  year 
you  are  appealed  to  on  the  subject  of  appropriating 
more  money  to  expend  on  this  common  school  system. 
I  have  noticed  these  appeals  in  times  past,  but  so  far 
as  I  can  recollect,  I  know  of  no  speaker  who  has  been 
asked  or  allowed  to  discuss  the  taxpayer's  side  of  this 
question,  unless  you  will  graciously  hear  me  at  this 
time. 

There  is  something  singular  in  this  omission  or 
oversight.  There  are  continued  addresses  on  the  needs 
of  this  and  that  school,  pleadings  for  more  taxation,  to 
raise  more  school  money,  but  the  people  who  pay  the 
taxes  are  not  here  to  tell  you  of  their  burdens  and 
their  difficulties.    Yet,  gentlemen,  the  mutterings  are 

174 


loud  and  deep,  and  have  been  growing  in  intensity  for 
a  great  many  years  past. 

THIRTY  YEARS  OF  EXPERIENCE. 

Georgia  began  with  the  "free  school"  taxation  for 
our  schools  in  1871.  We  have  had  the  system  on  us 
for  thirty  years.  And  since  1871  we  have  raised  by 
various  means  and  from  various  sources,  eighteen  mil- 
lion eight  hundred  and  forty-four  thousand  of  dol- 
lars in  round  numbers  ($18,844,000)  for  common 
schools  in  Georgia.  That  money  is  gone — sunk  out  of 
sight  forever.  We  have  been  piling  up  money  for 
common  schools  for  thirty  years  and  the  cry  of  more 
money  has  been  heard  unceasingly. 

This  money  has  been  demanded  for  the  common 
schools,  not  the  university  or  branch  colleges.  It  takes 
no  count  of  the  money  raised  for  local  schools,  by  mu- 
nicipal taxation,  nor  the  Peabody  fund,  but  it  is  the 
expense  account  of  the  common  schools  system  of  the 
state  of  Georgia,  in  less  than  thirty  years  time. 

In  the  year  1874  we  had  350  state  convicts  to  lease 
to  contractors.  In  the  year  1901  we  have  something 
like  3,000  or  upward,  without  taking  into  notice  the 
misdemeanor  camps,  county  chaingangs,  etc. 

The  state  set  up  the  common  school  system  to  thwart 
the  evils  of  illiteracy  and  ignorance. 

This  cry  for  "more  money"  has  been  swelling,  in- 
creasing and  reverberating  all  over  Georgia  for  these 
thirty  years  past,  but  we  have  surely  increased  crim- 
inals for  the  state  penitentiary  in  about  the  same  ratio 
that  we  have  swelled  the  school  fund  from  year  to 
year,  until  the  people  who  own  property  to  be  taxed 
are  trembling  under  present  and  prospective  burdens 
for  this  extravagant  and  unsatisfactory  school  system. 
Whenever  a  measure  to  curtail  expenses  is  presented 
to  the  General  Assembly,  the  interested  people  begin 
to  gather,  and  button-hole  the  members,  because,  gen- 
tlemen, we  have  made  teaching  a  profession,  composed 
of  state  officials  and  we  have  in  round  numbers  some- 
thing like  ten  thousand  common  school  teachers  who 
hold  state  positions  paid  by  the  state  in  Georgia,  three 
thousand  of  them  colored  and  the  rest  are  white.  If  the 

175 


Supreme  Court  of  the  State  had  not  placed  protection 
over  the  treasury  last  summer  against  the  demands 
of  the  system,  there  would  have  been  precious  little 
money  in  sight  to  be  returned  to  your  attention  or 
consideration.  But  I  need  not  explain  that  matter 
further. 

These  appeals  for  more  school  money  have  become 
demands,  and  influence  popular  elections. 

Georgia's  conditions  different  from  many  other 

STATES. 

In  last  year's  educational  report  to  this  body  you 
were  shown  comparisons  between  Massachusetts, 
Rhode  Island  and  New  York;  poor  old  Georgia,  that 
was  swept  by  a  besom  of  destruction  a  little  over 
thirty  years  ago,  and  millions  of  property  were  blown 
off  in  ashes,  when  Sherman's  vandals  put  a  torch  to 
them.  The  states  here  mentioned  pay  in  local  taxes, 
says  our  commissioner,  while  three-fourths  of  Geor- 
gia's money  is  raised  by  state  taxation. 

I  tell  you  gentlemen  there  is  no  comparison  in  in- 
dividual wealth  and  taxable  property  between  the 
states  mentioned  no  more  than  between  Canada  and 
Kamschatka. 

"We  have  three  thousand  negro  teachers  to  pay 
as  well  as  white  ones.  In  Bartow  county  nearly 
one  half  the  white  children  of  school  age  did 
not  attend  school  last  year,  while  two  thirds 
of  the  negro  children  did  attend.  We  want  no 
comparisons  with  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island  or 
New  York,  on  taxation.  Our  conditions  are  different 
altogether.  This  new  report  says  "Nobody  knows, 
except  those  familiar  with  it,  the  distressing  situation 
in  which  they  (school  teachers)  have  been  placed  this 
present  year."  Gentlemen,  a  great  many  of  us  do 
know  how  difficult  and  distressing  it  has  become  in 
many  sections  to  raise  this  tax  money  to  meet  the  ex- 
pense here  noted.  Bartow  county  calls  on  us  now 
for  fifteen  dollars  on  the  thousand  for  tax  money  and 
men  who  own  farms  are  obliged  to  move  to  town,  to 
educate  their  children,  these  rural  schools  are  so  very 
common  and  generally  worthless.     "We  are  generally 

176 


poor  in  Georgia,  while  they  are  rich  in  the  states  thus 
compared  with  us.  We  have  some  other  difficulties 
which  I  will  mention  later. 

Georgia's  liabilities  are  heavy. 

Georgia  has  a  bonded  debt  of  eight  millions  or  there- 
abouts. Such  states  as  Illinois  and  Missouri  have  no 
bonded  debt  at  all,  and  the  state  of  Georgia  puts  upon 
the  taxpayers  a  direct  levy  of  $800,000  for  the  present 
year  for  schools,  the  common  sort,  in  addition  to  the 
convict  hire,  fertilizer  fees,  poll  tax,  half  the  rental 
of  W.  &  A.  R.  R.,  show  tax  and  other  things. 

This  common  school  business  has  a  maw  like  an  ele- 
phant. It  is  forever  hungry  for  more  money.  There 
were  a  million  and  a  quarter  dollars  fed  to  the  com- 
mon schools  in  the  country  places  last  year,  and  as 
much  will  be  fed  this  year,  and  there  are  colleges  all 
around,  cities  have  their  own  local  schools,  and  no 
mention  is  here  made  of  the  millions  already  invested 
for  colored  education  in  our  borders. 

MANY  CHILDREN  DO  NOT  ATTEND  COMMON  SCHOOLS. 

The  school  commissioner  says  we  had  six  hundred 
and  sixty-five  thousand  of  school  age  in  1898.  He  also 
says  we  increase  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  annually. 
I  am  safe  in  saying  we  have  seven  hundred  thousand 
now.  He  says  eight-ninths  of  these  children  are  in 
the  rural  districts.  Of  all  these  seven  hundred  thou- 
sand, eight  live  in  the  country  to  one  in  town.  Don't 
forget  this  estimate,  gentlemen,  because  it  is  official. 
He  also  says  they  go  to  school  less  than  one  hundred 
days  in  the  year.  I  understand  him  to  mean  we  pro- 
vide country  schools  for  less  than  one  hundred  days 
in  the  year.  But,  gentlemen,  that  does  not  mean  that 
700,000  go  to  school  one  hundred  days  in  the  year. 
Nothing  like  it.  Less  than  half  attend  at  all.  The 
commissioner  says  less  than  forty  per  cent  attend.  I 
have  the  figures  to  show  that  nearly  one-half  the  white 
children  in  Bartow  did  not  go  last  year,  while  two- 
thirds  of  the  negroes  did  go.  I  am  not  complaining  of 
any  individual,  as  I  told  you,  I  am  discussing  the  sys- 
tem itself.    The  fault  is  in  the  system.    So  great  is  this 

177 


lack  of  attendance  that  the  commissioner  in  his  last 
year's  report  uses  the  following  words:  "The  right  to 
tax  the  people  for  the  maintenance  of  the  schools  car- 
ries with  it  the  right  to  compel  every  parent  or  guar- 
dian to  send  the  children  to  school.  Less  than  forty 
per  cent  of  the  children  attended  school  the  entire 
school  term.  There  always  have  been  and  there  al- 
ways will  be,  perhaps,  people  who  are  indifferent 
about  the  education  of  their  children.  In  order  to 
reach  the  children  of  this  class  of  people  a  compulsory 
attendance  law  must  be  enacted. ' ' 

I  have  looked  over  the  advance  sheets  of  his  forth- 
coming report  but  I  have  failed  to  find  a  further  men- 
tion of  compulsory  attendance  but  these  were  brave 
words  and  true  words,  because  something  must  be 
done  to  improve  these  rural  schools  or  quit  the  busi- 
ness. 

Your  executive  strongly  condemns  the  present  sys- 
tem, when  he  told  you  it  was  unwise,  unjust,  unheard 
of,  and  unfair,  and  especially  unsatisfactory.  This  is 
a  serious  indictment,  because  it  is  true,  and  has  be- 
come a  very  serious  business  to  those  whose  labor  or 
real  estate  is  taxed  so  heavily  to  support  it. 

INJUSTICE  TO  TAXPAYERS   IS   GREAT. 

Gentlemen,  the  time  has  come  to  look  into  this  busi- 
ness in  a  dispassionate  way.  Because  I  see  and  feel 
that  a  revolt  is  pending.  I  come  to  you  to  talk  as  a 
mother  or  elder  sister  might  do  of  a  trouble  that  me- 
naces the  family.  You  know,  gentlemen,  there  is  no 
way  to  avoid  the  harsh  compulsory  taxation  placed 
upon  us  for  this  school  business.  You  know  it  must 
come,  on  demand  or  a  fi.  fa.  will  be  issued  and  the  sher- 
iff will  sell  property  to  raise  it.  There  has  been  law 
enough  to  take  the  roof  from  the  heads  of  the  last  one 
of  you  in  this  presence  if  you  fail  to  pay  your  share 
of  this  direct  tax  levy.  When  the  state  puts  its  iron 
hand  in  your  pocket  and  take  therefrom  a  portion  of 
your  income  and  forces  you  to  disgorge  under  pain 
and  penalties,  what  rightfully  and  honestly  belongs  to 
you,  under  the  plea  that  such  tax  money  is  needed  to 
protect  your  life  and  property    (and  you  know  it 

178 


would  be  gross  tyranny  to  claim  this  authority  under 
any  other  plea),  then  I  declare  without  hesitation  that 
you  should  apply  it  to  the  place  where  it  will  do  the 
work  the  state  promised  to  do,  or  that  money  should 
be  returned  to  you,  and  the  waste  checked  for  all  time 
to  come. 

THE    GOVERNOR    SAYS 

"The  present  system  will  never  be  satisfactory  to 
either  teachers  or  taxpayers,  because  it  is  unjust,  un- 
wise, unfair  and  unheard  of,  in  any  other  state  in  this 
union.  It  is  unwise  because  it  makes  free  schools  un- 
popular with  the  taxpayers.  It  is  unfair  and  unjust 
because  it  makes  a  few  counties  bear  all  the  burdens 
of  state  government,  and  after  doing  this,  contribute 
to  the  payment  of  pensions  and  the  support  of  schools 
in  all  the  other  counties." 

The  greatest  injustice  which  the  Governor  did  not 
mention,  is  levying  a  direct  tax  on  the  labor  and  prop- 
erty of  this  country,  and  failing  to  do  good  work  with 
it.  The  state  is  unjust  to  the  taxpayers  on  this  line. 
The  failure  is  confessed,  and  the  disappointing  re- 
sults speak  for  themselves. 

We  raise  money  and  pay  teachers  about  ten  thou- 
sand of  them,  to  educate  the  illiterate  and  less  than 
forty  per  cent  of  children  go  to  school.  The  state  is 
unjust  in  making  the  taxpayer  turn  over  money  which 
cannot  be  applied  to  a  purpose. 

The  lash  of  compulsory  taxation  is  laid  upon  the 
back  of  the  man  who  has  by  thrift,  economy  and  in- 
dustry earned  some  property  to  tax,  and  no  obligation 
whatever  is  laid  upon  the  man,  whose  children  are  to 
be  educated  at  public  exense,  and  he  fails  to  accept  the 
benefit. 

The  obligation  should  be  mutual,  gentlemen.  The 
responsibility  should  be  mutual.  The  pains  and  pen- 
alties should  be  similar.  The  duty  of  school  attend- 
ance should  run  parallel  with  the  obligation  of  com- 
pulsory taxation,  or  the  unjust  and  unfair  system 
should  give  place  to  something  better,  or  be  promptly 
abolished.  It  is  the  manifest  failure  to  accomplish 
the  work  proposed  that  is  disgusting  taxpayers.    The 

179 


Governor  is  right.  The  fault  is  in  the  system  itself. 
It  is  the  gross  injustice  of  compulsion  laid  upon  one 
class  to  benefit  another  class,  that  refuses  to  accept 
the  benefit. 

AN  EXAMPLE  OF  ITS  POOR  WORK  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS. 

In  the  year  1900  our  worthy  county  school  commis- 
sioner desired  to  open  a  school  near  where  we  live. 
We  agreed  to  open  a  vacant  house  to  accommodate  the 
school.  He  employed  a  competent  teacher  from  Ten- 
nessee to  teach  four  months  at  $25  a  month,  if  an  av- 
erage of  15  pupils  each  day  could  be  secured. 

That  many  and  more  were  promised,  but  the  school 
absolutely  frittered  out  at  the  close  and  although 
there  were  more  than  thirty  names  enrolled,  a  bare 
average  was  sustained  by  serious  effort. 

The  opportunity  was  not  appreciated.  The  chil- 
dren did  not  attend.  The  teacher  was  there  ready, 
eager,  willing,  but  the  flimsiest  and  most  silly  excuses 
were  rendered  for  non  attendance. 

The  same  effort  was  made  this  year.  It  went  to 
pieces  in  less  than  two  months. 

Gentlemen,  it  will  never  be  any  better  until  a  reme- 
dy is  applied  to  non-attendance  and  more  money  to 
pay  teachers  will  not  do  it,  ever.  The  thing  is  so  abso- 
lutely free  that  a  chromo  will  have  to  be  offered  to  ex- 
cite curiosity  and  provoke  a  trial  of  the  teacher.  It 
is  a  waste  of  money. 

I  have  some  neighbors  adjoining  our  lands. 
One  sends  two  children  to  Cartersville  school,  four 
and  a  half  miles,  and  on  the  first  day  of  every  month 
for  nine  or  ten  school  months,  he  hands  over  four 
dollars  to  pay  tuition.  I  have  another  neighbor  and 
he  sends  four.  The  first  day  of  every  month  he  pays 
three  dollars  for  three  and  two  for  one,  five  in  all. 
Another  neighbor  sends  three,  all  to  the  same  place, 
and  pays  four  dollars  for  the  three.  Another  with 
six  children  can 't  send  to  town  and  they  get  no  school- 
ing at  all.  This  is  what  is  going  on  under  my  own 
personal  knoweldge,  and  yet  Bartow  county  is  consid- 
ered one  of  the  best  counties,  and  Cartersville  one  of 
the  best  towns.     These  men  all  are  farmers  and  all 

180 


pay  taxes,  at  the  rate  of  $15  on  the  thousand.  If  you 
could  only  gather  in  the  amounts  of  money  paid  out 
by  taxpayers  to  educate  their  own  children,  you  would 
open  your  eyes. 

No  wonder  people  rush  off  to  town  to  get  into 
schools  that  have  interest  and  vitality  in  them.  Eight 
ninths  of  the  children  live  in  the  country  and  from 
what  I  gather,  eight-ninths  of  the  rural  schools  are  not 
worth  the  value  of  a  dried  apple. 

Friends,  legislators,  this  farce  ought  to  stop  if  it  is 
not  improved.  It  would  be  a  comedy  if  it  was  not  a 
tragedy.  It  reminds  me  of  a  farmer  feeding  wild 
hogs  that  he  has  never  seen  since  they  were  littered. 
He  takes  a  basket  of  corn  and  hollers  for  the  pigs,  and 
the  bushes  rustle  and  the  corn  rattles  on  the  dead 
leaves,  but  no  hogs  come  in  sight.  The  birds,  the 
crows,  the  squirrels  and  wild  game  get  the  corn,  and 
the  hogs  are  as  wild  as  when  they  first  saw  daylight. 
We  have  been  scattering  corn  for  thirty  years  and  the 
wild  pigs  are  no  more  appreciative  than  before. 

EQUALIZE  THE  OBLIGATION. 

The  mistake  in  the  last  thirty  years  has  been  to  use 
a  Bible  metaphor  for  unappreciation,  casting  pearls 
before  swine.  There  is  absolutely  no  obligation  laid 
upon  the  parent  or  guardian  who  is  expected  to  pat- 
ronize these  schools. 

The  crowning  injustice  lies  in  the  fact  that  this 
money  is  extorted  whether  the  pupils  attend  or  not. 
There  is  absolute  compulsion  at  one  end  of  the  line 
and  no  compulsion  at  the  other  end  of  the  line  at  all. 
The  indifferent  parent  has  it  in  his  power  to  defeat 
the  intent  of  the  school  law  by  his  refusal  to  accept 
the  benefit.  Only  forty  per  cent  of  these  patrons  or 
guardians  are  favorable  to  the  opportunity,  for  we  are 
told  less  than  forty  per  cent  attend  the  schools.  The 
application  of  the  money  is  a  failure. 

Compulsory  taxation  presupposes  compulsory  at- 
tendance. There  is  no  equity  in  compulsion  to  raise 
taxes  without  compulsion  to  apply  them.  There  is  no 
principle  in  republican  government  more  strongly  em- 
phasized than  ownership  of  what  one  earns,  honestly 

181 


acquires  and  properly  inherits.  This  enforced  taxa- 
tion to  benefit  those  who  can  decline  to  be  benefitted 
is  simple  tyranny. 

I  do  not  care  from  what  standpoint  you  view  it, 
it  it  persistently  unjust.  There  should  be  proper  ob- 
ligation on  the  other  side  to  meet  the  obligation  im- 
posed by  the  state.  And  there  should  not  be  a  penny 
more  extorted  than  can  be  usefully  employed.  Geor- 
gia should  furnish  brains  enough  to  work  out  this 
problem  and  patriotism  enough  to  apply  the  remedy. 

Gentlemen  are  you  not  responsible  for  these  im- 
provements and  failures? 

ANOTHER  EXAMPLE  OP  ITS  WORKINGS. 

Let  us  suppose  that  it  is  my  child  which  is  suffering 
for  a  common  school  education. 

The  state  compels  you  to  furnish  the  money  to  do 
it,  not  one  dollar  of  which  you  can  or  do  owe  to  me 
or  mine.  The  state  says  that  illiterate  child  must  be 
educated  because  illiteracy  and  crime  go  hand  in  hand, 
and  its  parent  is  not  able  to  do  it. 

You  must  do  it,  or  have  a  fifa  issued  to  raise  that 
school  money  out  of  your  property.  If  you  and  yours 
become  homeless,  this  child  must  be  taught  by  public 
school  teachers,  paid  by  the  state,  and  that  real  estate 
is  subject  to  the  school  tax,  no  matter  how  many  times 
it  is  sold  and  resold  by  sheriff  or  marshal.  I  say  it 
will  be  no  greater  hardship  to  compel  me  to  send  that 
child  to  school,  than  to  wring  its  tuition  out  of  your 
honest  labor  or  earnings.  Unless  I  am  made  to  send 
that  child  to  school,  when  I  refuse  to  do  it,  your  money 
will  be  worse  than  wasted.  You  are  wronged  in  every 
sense  of  the  word.  I  am  no  better  than  you  when  ob- 
ligation to  accept  is  laid  upon  me,  especially  when  it 
all  accrues  to  my  benefit. 

I  saw  a  newspaper  paragraph  in  a  leading  journal  a 
few  days  ago  on  this  subject.    It  said : 

"I'd  like  to  see  anybody  get  up  and  tell  Mrs.  Fel- 
ton  it  was  time  to  send  her  child  to  school." 

Gentlemen,  when  the  money  is  wrung  out  of  your 
pockets  to  send  my  child  to  school,  you  should  have 

182 


the  authority  to  fix  the  time  and  what  is  more  appar- 
ent, to  make  me  pay  for  negligence  if  I  fail  to  send 
it. 

When  you  are  thrashed  to  the  place  where  your 
money  is  taken  from  you,  to  benefit  my  child,  it  is 
cowardly  for  me  to  cry  out  if  I  am  made  to  pay  a 
fine  for  the  non-attendance  of  my  child.  There  is  no 
more  equity  in  thrashing  you  to  the  paying  place 
than  in  thrashing  me  to  the  school  house. 

If  I  hide  out  that  child  in  the  cotton  patch  or  cot- 
ton factory  to  earn  money  for  me,  while  you  are  pay- 
ing its  tuition  under  compulsion  from  the  state,  you 
should  demand  the  payment  of  a  proper  fine  from  me, 
because  I  refused  to  school  the  child. 

As  before  said,  the  state  compels  your  school  tax 
as  a  preventive  measure.  The  state  says  it  is  easier 
and  more  humane  to  support  school  houses  than  jail 
houses.  Under  no  other  claim  can  this  compulsory 
tax  be  demanded  of  you,  and  the  conclusion  is  impera- 
tive. You  should  be  remunerated  in  some  way.  If  I 
defeat  the  intent  of  the  tax  law,  by  non-attendance, 
the  state  should,  in  fair  dealing  and  honesty,  refund 
you  the  money  or  compel  the  child  to  go  to  school,  or 
put  the  officer  on  me  until  the  fine  is  paid,  or  abolish 
an  unjust  system. 

Some  will  say,  I  am  the  best  judge  of  what  my  child 
shall  do.  No,  gentlemen,  the  state  tells  you  that  you 
shall  provide  a  teacher  for  my  child,  and  it  should 
tell  me  "send  that  child  or  pay  the  penalty,"  and  com- 
pel the  child  to  go. 

I  admit  you,  I  do  not  like  either  side  of  this  busi- 
ness. I  tell  you  it  is  anti-republican  in  its  leadings, 
but  it  came  along  down  here  when  our  people  did  not 
understand  its  workings  and  we  had  that  much  of 
Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island  slapped  on  to  us, 
when  we  did  not  recognize  or  appreciate  our  own  con- 
ditions. "We  were  told  that  free  schools  would  make 
Sunday  folks  out  of  freedmen,  and  we  see  now  that 
seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  free  school  chainganc; 
crowd  go  in  there  for  forgery  and  such  like.  The  little 
learning  has  worked  a  disadvantage. 

183 


But,  gentlemen,  in  this  school  report  we  are  told 
that  "the  common  school  is  here  and  here  to  stay." 
Those  are  the  words.  Literally  interpreted  it  means 
school  taxation  is  here  and  here  to  stay.  I  say  to  you, 
as  parents  and  honest  men,  equalize  the  burdens  and 
divide  the  responsibility.  When  you  are  compelled  to 
furnish  the  money  to  school  my  child,  compel  me  to 
furnish  the  scholar.  If  I  do  not  furnish  the  scholar 
that  you  have  paid  for,  compel  me  to  pay  a  fine  that 
will  cover  the  loss  to  the  state  if  not  to  you.  That's 
business.  Nothing  else  will  ever  be  honest  or  satis- 
factory while  the  present  system  obtains.  This  is  only 
fair  dealing  with  generosity  leaning  to  my  side. 

When  your  boy  gets  to  be  sixteen  years  old,  the 
road  overseer  will  say,  "Be  there  tomorrow  at  six 
or  seven  o'clock,  bring  your  hoe,  pick,  or  shovel"  as 
the  case  may  be.  The  state  says  work  that  road  un- 
der compulsion  or  pay  a  fine,  and  the  fine  is  paid,  or 
that  boy  works  the  road. 

Now  I  do  not  claim  that  school  children  should  be 
fined,  but  I  do  say,  their  indifferent  and  apathetic  par- 
ents should  suffer  in  pocket  if  they  do  not  attend, 
and  Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island  say  that  much. 
We  should  swallow  the  whole  pill  or  hear  less  of  Mas- 
sachusetts and  Rhode  Island.  They  compel  and  fine 
with  a  vim. 

But  maybe  you  will  tell  me  that  you  are  educating 
enough  free  niggers  now,  and  if  attendance  is  compul- 
sory you  won't  have  a  hand  to  work  a  farm.  Friends, 
you  have  been  getting  less  and  less  labor  every  year, 
for  a  dozen  and  upwards,  with  more  money  for  their 
schools  and  those  that  don't  go  to  school  do  worse,  and 
as  courts  and  jails  do  not  diminish  criminals,  then 
try  school  houses  in  dead  earnest.  We  now  have  about 
three  thousand  colored  teachers  in  Georgia,  common 
schools,  paid  out  of  this  tax  money.  Divide  three 
thousand  by  137,  the  number  of  counties,  and  we  will 
average  more  than  twenty  colored  teachers  to  each 
county,  and  some  counties  have  no  negroes  to  teach 
in  upper  Georgia. 

I  insist  that  WE  ARE  FULLY  SUPPLIED  WITH 
TEACHERS,  and  the  average  pay  of  $130  for  less 

184 


than  a  hundred  days  in  the  year  is  very  good  pay 
for  the  work  in  rural  schools,  judging  from  what  I 
know  of  farm  life  and  the  scarcity  of  cash.  Insist, 
gentlemen,  on  full  attendance  for  these  schools,  and 
there  will  be  less  time  for  shooting,  stabbing,  outrages 
and  less  opportunity  for  the  politicians  among  them, 
because  it  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  every  colored 
teacher  joins  in  the  hue  and  cry  of  poor  salaries,  calls 
for  more  money  and  sometimes  threatens  to  vote  the 
treasurer  out  of  office  because  he  waited  until  the 
Supreme  Court  told  him  what  to  do  with  the  state's 
property  fund  last  summer.  There  is  too  much  Mas- 
sachusetts and  Rhode  Island  in  this  thing  to  suit  me, 
but  if  the  system  is  here  to  stay,  then  try  to  get  some 
results  from  the  plant  you  are  working,  by  compell- 
ing school  attendance. 

It  reminds  me  of  a  great  big  cotton  factory  with 
a  $12,000  engine,  any  amount  of  looms  and  spinning 
jennys,  and  a  big  force  of  operatives  all  standing  still 
or  operating  on  half  time,  because  no  cotton  is  in 
reach,  the  raw  material  is  lacking.  That  plant  is 
comparatively  useless.  We  have  the  common  school 
plant.  Heaven  knows  it  is  a  costly  apparatus.  It  has 
soaked  up  nearly  twenty  millions  of  dollars  in  less 
than  thirty  years.  "While  the  local  schools  in  town  are 
generally  good  eight-ninths  of  the  country  schools 
are  next  to  nothing.  The  factory  is  idle  sixty  per 
cent  of  the  time,  for  there  is  lack  of  raw  material. 
Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island  supplied  the  pupils, 
we  let  them  go  as  they  please. 

We  cannot  pattern  our  schools  after  the  pattern  of 
Northern  states,  and  we  have  reached  a  place  where 
this  state  should  refuse  to  engage  more  teachers  than 
there  are  children  to  teach.  I  say  to  you  gentlemen, 
we  have  been  running  this  school  business  quite  long 
enough  on  sentiment,  gush  and  political  influences. 

A   STRAIGHT   BUSINESS  PROPOSITION. 

Pay  your  taxes  with  the  distinct  understanding  that 
no  teacher  should  be  sent  to  a  school  until  the  peo- 
ple, the  patrons  want  a  school  bad  enough  to  ask  for 
it,  and  will  help  to  support  it,  by  paying  in  money  or 

185 


work,  for  at  least  half  the  expense  of  a  school  house, 
one  suitable  for  a  winter  as  well  as  a  summer  school. 
And  pay  no  teacher  that  has  no  scholars  to  teach,  and 
no  school  house  to  teach  in.  Then  the  patrons  should 
sign  an  agreement  with  the  state  to  furnish  enough 
pupils  to  employ  a  teacher  at  a  stated  price.  That 
agreement  should  have  legal  force,  otherwise  it  is 
worthless. 

That  number  of  pupils  should  be  kept  up,  sickness 
alone  preventing.  A  fine  should  be  collected  for  every 
day  a  pupil  is  absent. 

This  hap-hazard  way  of  providing  teachers  for  any 
community  without  regard  to  attendance  is  simply 
preposterous.  Let  this  wild  flinging  of  tax  money 
stop,  and  only  for  such  schools  as  will  comply  with 
rigid  requirements. 

The  commissioner  tells  you  in  his  report,  that  the 
"burning  question"  is  appropriating  more  money  to 
keep  up  this  common  school.  It  is  burning  up  the  pa- 
tience of  the  people  who  are.  so  heavily  taxed  to  see 
this  tax  money  so  terribly  wasted,  and  it  is  burning 
up  the  hardly  earned  tax  money,  when  more  than  six- 
ty per  cent  refuse  to  accept  the  benefit,  and  the  cry 
for  more  money,  and  the  state's  demand  for  more 
money  is  becoming  exasperating  to  the  last  degree.  It 
is  disgusting  people  with  the  system,  and  a  change  is 
bound  to  come  sooner  or  later. 

Pay  only  for  what  may  be  termed  value  received, 
legislators. 

A  neighbor  told  me  a  few  days  ago  he  knew  of  a 
teacher  who  was  also  a  preacher,  and  who  boasted  he 
was  sent  to  a  school  because  he  had  "influence."  He 
was  paid  a  salary.  He  told  some  of  the  folks  that  he 
could  teach  a  small  attendance  as  well  as  a  large  one, 
for  he  got  no  more  money  for  one  than  the  other. 
After  awhile  they  dropped  down  below  the  limit,  and 
then  he  got  out,  to  drumming  up  pupils.  It  makes 
all  the  difference  in  the  world  as  to  limits,  and  re- 
strictions. 


186 


PAY  FOR  NO  MORE  TEACHERS  THAN  THERE  ARE  CHILDREN 
WHO  CAN  BE  TAUGHT. 

And  it  would  seem  that  ten  thousand  teachers  for 
common  schools,  for  the  137  counties  should  be  an 
ample  supply  at  present.  That  means  about  72  to  the 
county,  and  remember  we  have  an  immense  number  of 
pupils  in  various  other  schools  in  Georgia. 

We  paid  out  last  year  about  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  for  county  commissioners  and  local  superin- 
tendents. Does  not  that  seem  high  for  137  counties? 
If  you  have  one  capable  school  overseer  in  a  county 
can  he  not  overlook  the  schools  without  more  expense  ? 
I  am  asking  you  to  look  closely  into  this  tax  money, 
gentlemen.  It  is  pathetic  to  know  how  many  poor 
homes  there  are  in  Georgia,  that  are  struggling  in  all 
good  conscience  to  live  by  their  labor  and  keep  out  of 
debt.  There  are  many  honest,  hard-working  families 
that  do  not  see  a  clear  dollar  after  twelve  months  of 
close  economy  and  hard  work.  They  would  like  to 
keep  their  homes,  to  own  land,  that  has  in  many  in- 
stances been  owned  by  their  fathers  before  them,  but 
gentlemen  of  the  legislature,  these  taxes  are  so  burden- 
some that  it  is  cheaper  and  safer  to  rent  land  than  to 
own  it,  and  these  schools  in  the  country  are  so  poor,  so 
unsatisfactory,  so  unproductive  of  interest  or  useful- 
ness, that  the  country  places  are  only  endured  by  those 
who  can  send  their  children  elsewhere  to  school,  or  by 
those  who  are  too  indifferent  to  patronize  them,  or  by 
those  who  must  stay  until  the  sheriff  sells  the  land. 
It  is  because  this  unsatisfactory  system  is  making 
country  life  so  unattractive,  that  I  plead  with  you  to- 
day. 

The  cry  goes  up,  yes  a  wail  of  disappointment,  that 
COUNTRY-RAISED  BOYS  WILL  LEAVE  THE 
FARM.  Why?  Because  these  country  homes  have 
to  meet  such  conditions  as  I  here  mention.  This  ru- 
ral system  of  schools  is  barren  of  educational  interest. 
It  pays  the  teacher  if  it  pays  anybody,  but  nobody 
else  does  it  pay. 

I  submit,  the  state  should  not  go  into  the  business  of 
providing  a  living  or  profession  for  anybody.  The 
school  fund  is  raised  for  schools,  with  teachers  as  sec- 

187 


ondary  in  importance.  We  have  tried  the  unfair  sys- 
tem nearly  thirty  years.  We  have  run  away  from  the 
country  all  the  private  schools. 

Before  the  war  we  had  good  country  schools.  Peo- 
ple were  interested  in  keeping  them  good,  and  every 
poor  white  child  enjoyed  the  same  privilege  through 
the  county's  poor  rate.  After  the  war  we  mounted 
stilts  and  went  wild  after  the  pattern  of  Massachusetts 
and  Rhode  Island,  and  we  have  struck  hard  pan  with 
a  dull  thud  in  heavy  taxes  and  poor  country  schools. 
Where  will  poor  old  Georgia  wind  up  with  a  machine 
that  screams  all  the  time  for  more  money  to  pay  teach- 
ers and  more  than  sixty  per  cent  of  the  scholars  are 
in  the  cotton  field  or  ranging  the  big  road  with  a  gun 
and  dogs.  Bartow  county  was  obliged  to  hang  a  free 
school  product  a  few  days  ago.  It  was  a  close  shave  to 
get  him  to  the  gallows  rather  than  to  the  lyncher's 
fagot.  In  country  places  no  white  woman  is  safe  S/S 
on  the  highway  or  in  her  own  home  unprotected.  The 
school  commissioner  urges  the  purchase  of  school 
wagons  to  haul  white  ehildren  to  school,  an  addi- 
tional expense,  to  be  added  to  the  fund  for  paying  the 
teachers,  and  makes  the  plea  of  danger  and  the  neces- 
sity for  a  safe  escort  because,  he  says  "every  country 
road  is  infested  with  tramps."  My!  My!  Has  it 
come  to  this  pass  in  a  free  school  state  that  has  spent 
nearly  twenty  millions  of  dollars  since  emancipation 
to  aid  our  civilization? 

Can  you  pick  up  a  newspaper  that  does  not  record 
an  outrage  on  white  women,  or  the  lynching  of  a  rap- 
ist ?  But  I  am  told  we  must  raise  more  money  to  pro- 
vide more  education.  I  only  state  facts  when  I  tell 
you  what  you  all  know,  that  the  best  people  of  the 
colored  race,  a  class  fast  dying  out,  were  trained  to 
hard  work  with  modern  education  left  out.  God 
forbid  that  I  should  rob  the  colored  race  of  a  real 
friend,  or  deprive  it  of  a  dollar  to  which  it  is  honestly 
entitled.  But  I  will  dare  to  say  in  this  presence  in  the 
fear  of  God  and  the  siarht  of  man.  that  this  unsatis- 
factory school  system  has  not  reduced  criminals,  or 
checked  the  state's  expenditure  for  courts,  juries, 
jails  and  the  hangman's  rope.    It  has  added  nothing 

188 


to  the  security  of  rural  homes.  It  has  not  promoted 
purity  or  virtue  in  the  great  majority.  Some  years 
ago  an  old  darkey  woman  declined  to  do  some  house- 
work on  the  plea  that  she  must  stay  at  home  to  mind 
her  husband's  bastard  grand  children,  while  their 
mothers  taught  a  country  school.  No  doubt  they  were 
imposed  upon  the  authorities  by  false  statements  and 
concealments.  I  gave  the  conversation  as  spoken  in 
my  own  presence. 

We  must  deal  with  conditions  that  do  not  obtain  in 
Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island.  We  cannot  apply 
the  same  sort  of  compulsory  education  in  Georgia, 
that  their  laws  call  for ;  but  every  dollar  of  the  money 
which  you  raise  by  compulsory  taxation  should  be 
strictly  applied  to  teaching  common  schools,  and  there 
should  never  be  a  teacher  supplied  until  the  school  is 
waiting,  ready  and  eager,  with  a  legal  agreement  be- 
tween the  patrons  and  the  state  to  provide  scholars  in 
full  measure  for  the  undertaking.  The  state  has  been 
hallooing  for  wild  pigs  long  enough ;  pen  the  shoats, 
gentlemen,  before  you  throw  out  the  corn.  If  you  will 
allow  a  suggestion,  lawmakers,  you  need  to  bring  these 
country  schools  and  the  country  patrons  into  closer 
connection.  Compel  each  school  district  to  be  present 
when  a  teacher  is  to  be  supplied.  Let  them  have  a 
voice  in  the  selection.  Don't  let  this  enormous  busi- 
ness be  left  to  political  influence  or  personal  favorit- 
ism. 

ANOTHER   ILLUSTRATION    OF    UNSATISFACTORY    METHODS. 

A  few  years  ago  I  was  a  visitor  at  the  commence- 
ment of  our  State  University.  While  we  waited  in  the 
hotel  office  to  be  assigned  a  room  a  distinguished  edu- 
cator, a  visitor  appointed  by  Gov.  Atkinson,  came  to 
me,  saying,  ' '  I  must  bring  my  burden  to  you,  because 
my  heart  is  sick.  I  came  yesterday  (mentioning  the 
railroad),  and  during  my  trip  I  walked  through  the 
cars  to  the  smoker.  I  passed  a  neat  colored  woman 
busy  with  what  I  saw  was  a  Greek  book  used  in  our 
colleges.  As  I  returned,  I  asked  her  if  she  read  Greek. 
' '  Oh  !  yes.  I  am  on  my  way  to  teach  a  summer  school 
and  I  am  refreshing  myself  in  the  study."    When  I 

189 


sat  down  in  my  own  seat  in  the  rear  coach,  I  glanced 
out  at  a  nearby  cotton  field.  Four  young  white  wo- 
men were  hoeing  cotton — shabbily  dressed — in  the 
same  field  with  negro  men  and  boys.  I  have  been  so 
heart-sick  I  come  to  you  and  ask  if  you  can  suggest 
any  remedy." 

Gentlemen,  I  bring  the  story  to  you.  CAN  YOU 
SUGGEST  A  REMEDY? 

These  are  unwholesome  conditions.  I  bring  you 
some  unpalatable  facts  today.  Nevertheless  they  are 
facts.  I  am  glad  of  the  privilege  of  a  face  to  face  talk 
with  you  on  a  subject  that  is  not  only  affecting  pres- 
ent conditions,  but  these  young  women  are  to  be  the 
coming  mothers  of  our  race.  They  will  make  or  mar 
the  future  of  this  people.  I  am  telling  you  some 
things  that  our  politicians  whisper,  but  are  afraid 
to  speak  aloud.  I  hope  I  have  lived  long  enough  in 
Georgia  to  be  recognized  as  a  genuine  friend  of  edu- 
cation and  of  our  girls.  The  best  work  of  my  later 
years  has  been  devoted  to  their  interests.  When  our 
poor  white  women  in  Georgia  cotton  mills  were  cari- 
catured in  a  northern  magazine,  invidious  compari- 
sons drawn  between  colored  women  and  these  poor 
white  women,  when  every  reader  of  The  Century  mag- 
azine was  told  that  these  white  women  were  ignorant, 
debased  and  exchanged  husbands  as  they  changed 
houses,  I  went  in  person  to  some  of  the  cotton  mills 
to  stand  by  them  in  real  life  and  to  find  out  the  facts. 
I  brought  down  northern  sneers  on  my  devoted  head, 
but  while  I  found  a  few  persons,  who  said  there  were 
some  immoral  white  women  in  these  cotton  mill  homes, 
the  overwhelming  majority  were  honest,  virtuous,  self- 
sacrificing  wives  and  mothers.  Have  I  not  earned 
the  privilege  of  coming  into  your  presence  today  and 
begging  for  uplifting  of  the  white  girls  of  Georgia, 
in  rural  districts,  while  schools  and  first-class  universi- 
ties are  almost  in  the  sound  of  my  voice  to  provide 
colored  girls  with  the  higher  education. 

Whatever  is  done  for  the  poor  white  people  of  the 
South,  must  be  done  by  our  own  people.  It  is  folly 
to  fawn  or  flatter  expecting  help,  in  a  satisfactory 
degree.    We  have  an  average  of  seventy  odd  teachers 

190 


to  every  county  in  Georgia  today.  We  have  tried  the 
experiment  of  throwing  schools  and  paid  teachers  in 
generous  abundance  before  the  multitude  about  thirty 
years,  and  more  than  sixty  per  cent  of  school  children 
refuse  to  accept  the  benefit.  Last  year  in  Bartow 
county  there  were  57  white  teachers  and  18  colored. 
There  were  3,756  children  admitted,  but  1,373  of  the 
whites  admitted  did  not  attend  school  (a  little  less 
than  half),  and  two-thirds  of  the  negro  children  did 
go.  We  spent  about  $2,000  in  other  ways  beside  pay- 
ing teachers,  and  this  year  the  state's  taxes  in  Bar- 
tow county  are  up  to  the  limit.  The  county  has  laid 
on  heavier  taxation  than  Gov.  Bullock's  entire  ad- 
ministration called  for,  and  town  property  is  gouged 
for  the  last  dollar  it  will  bear.  Nobody  can  expect  to 
get  more  than  six  per  cent  on  a  thousand  dollar  bond 
as  interest,  but  Bartow  county  calls  for  fifteen  dollars 
tax  money,  on  every  thousand  dollars  returned  as 
property.  The  end  is  inevitable.  No  county  can  en- 
dure such  increasing  demands.  No  business  can  stand 
such  a  drain  very  long. 

And  it  required  nearly  $12,000  last  year  to  run  the 
school  machine  in  Bartow  county  with  a  little  over 
2,000  children  to  attend  the  common  schools,  managed 
by  state  authority. 

Commissioner  Glenn  says  we  must  save  the  lost 
boys.  From  all  appearances  we  had  best  appeal  to 
and  engage  foreign  missionaries  for  ourselves.  With 
more  than  sixty  per  cent  of  children  of  school  age  de- 
clining to  attend  common  schools  we  must  save  the 
lost  by  some  other  saving  device,  than  those  employed 
at  present  by  compulsory  taxation. 

MORE  TAX  MONEY  THE  CONTINUAL  CRY. 

Despite  the  governor's  condemnation  of  the  sys- 
tem there  is  no  let  up  in  the  call  for  more  money. 
And  it  would  appear  also  that  like  the  horse  leech's 
daughter,  the  biggest  part  of  the  machine  is  "more 
money. ' '  I  once  heard  of  a  poor  man  who  complained 
of  a  cold  head.  Somebody  told  him  to  put  on  a  night 
cap.  He  afterwards  called  for  another  night  cap 
when  he  felt  cold  about  his  head.    He  never  removed 

191 


a  night  cap  and  at  last  accounts  his  head  would  not 
go  in  a  two  bushel  basket,  and  he  still  felt  cold  in  the 
head.  There  seems  to  be  but  one  reply  when  the  un- 
satisfactory system  is  complained  of,  namely  "more 
money."  We  never  take  off  anything,  but  the  legis- 
lature is  asked  to  put  another  night  cap  on  the  suf- 
ferer's head,  and  one  big  enough  to  go  on  over  the 
accumulated  night  caps  every  year. 

We  have  an  average  of  72  teachers  to  the  county 
now.  We  need  scholars,  not  teachers.  We  have  com- 
mon school  teachers  enough  to  form  ten  regiments, 
rank  and  file,  at  present,  nearly  three  thousand  col- 
ored. One  third  of  the  night  caps  are  dark  colored. 
Gentlemen  of  the  legislature,  have  fewer  schools  and 
better  schools,  and  apply  enough  compulsion  to  make 
a  school  large  enough  to  engage  the  time  of  the  teach- 
er. You  have  patched  and  poulticed  the  system  for 
thirty  years.  Try  a  remedy  that  will  save  the  patient 
or  quit  paying  for  nothing. 

Some  time  ago  a  young  man  called  for  a  drink  of 
water.  He  had  been  teaching  a  country  school  at  $40 
a  month  and  was  on  his  way  home  in  another  county 
with  the  money.  He  received  $200  for  five  months  in 
a  common  school.  He  laughed  as  he  remarked  "Pa 
says  I  have  made  more  clear  money  in  five  months 
than  he  has  received  in  two  years  from  his  fine  valley 
farm."  That  is  the  situation,  gentlemen.  I  believe 
in  paying  the  teacher  and  the  preacher  according  to 
what  I  get  after  a  hard  year's  work.  We  have  ten 
regiments  of  teachers  in  service,  and  are  turning  out 
some  hundreds  more  every  year.  Like  the  French 
people  before  the  Revolution,  we  will  not  be  long  in 
getting  to  where  privileged  classes  will  be  finally  eat- 
ing up  our  property  in  taxes.  When  I  think  of  the 
fine  negro  colleges  and  three  thousand  colored  teach- 
ers, in  Georgia,  paid  by  the  state  and  the  poor  child 
that  can't  get  to  you  to  raise  its  white  hand  to  ask 
for  a  way  of  escape,  I  say :  Remember  your  duty,  and 
do  it  speedily. 


192 


ELECTION  FRAUDS  IN  GEORGIA  IN  1894. 


The  year  1894  was  not  a  presidential  election  year 
but  it  was  a  year  when  elections  for  congressmen, 
governor  and  legislators  were  expected  in  October  and 
November.  These  elections  were  duly  held,  and  im- 
mediately there  were  thirty-two  contests  booked  for  a 
hearing  before  the  legislature,  and  two  congressional 
elections  were  in  doubt — the  10th  and  the  7th.  Of 
the  latter  I  am  prepared  to  speak,  as  I  had  intimate 
connection  with  its  progress,  until  the  partisan  elec- 
tions committee  in  Washington  City  announced  its 
verdict.  Twenty-four  years  have  come  and  gone  since 
those  occurrences,  and  I  shall  endeavor  to  set  down 
my  recollections  in  a  spirit  of  fairness,  although  the 
events  of  that  time  are  sufficient  to  make  their  re- 
membrance a  trial  of  patience  and  forbearance  to  a 
more  patient  and  forgiving  person  than  I  claim  to 
be.  I  shall  therefore  set  down  the  main  incidents 
as  a  record  for  my  survivors,  and  also^or  the  young 
men  of  Georgia,  who  know  next  to  nothing  of  the  polit- 
ical oppression  and  tyranny  of  that  era  of  our  State's 
history.  The  story  of  the  election  in  the  Tenth  Dis- 
trict became  appalling  when  some  voters  were  killed 
in  Augusta,  Ga.,  and  negroes  were  bribed  by  the 
Democrats,  openly  and  ^continuously,  until  18,000  bal- 
lots were  placed  in  the  hallot  boxes  on  that  fateful 
day  in  Augusta  and  these  bribed  negro  voters  were 
kept  in  an  enclosure  and  carried  out  again  and  again 
to  the  voting  place  under  assumed  names  until  Chris- 
tian ministers  were  appalled  at  the  condition  of  af- 
fairs. Rev.  Dr.  Stradly,  Methodist  minister,  testified 
that  he  saw  a  squad  of  negroes  vote  five  different 
times  before  he  left  the  scene  and  a  young  white  man 
of  a  prominent  family  would  pass  a  coin  to  each  of 
the  negroes  every  time  they  were  taken  out  to  the 
voting  place.  "When  he  left  they  were  still  voting  and 
still  being  paid  for  their  votes.  The  Wesleyan  Chris- 
tian Advocate  next  week,  after  the  election,  said: 

The  elections  last  week  resulted  in  a  cyclone,  which  we 
hope  will  help  to  purify  the  atmosphere.     The  papers,  we 

193 


see,  are  now  talking  about  pure  elections,  and  our  state 
legislature  is  considering  the  matter.  It  is  time,  high 
time;  that  is,  if  it  is  not  too  late.  It  was  time  long  ago, 
and  the  shame  and  general  disruption  now  upon  us  might 
have  been  averted  if  we  had  been  governed  by  justice  and 
equity,  instead  of  party  tricks  and  personal  ambition. 
Some  things  in  the  election  l'ast  week  were  enough  to 
make  our  state  hang  her  head  and  go  slow. 

Honest  men  stood  by  for  hours  and  saw  these  fre- 
quent repeatings  of  half-drunken  negroes.  Rich- 
mond county  by  the  census  of  1890  had  a  population 
of  45,000.  By  some  sharp  trickery  the  ballot-box 
count  was  reduced  to  16,000,  yet  that  would  require 
every  third  citizen  to  vote  on  election  day — a  physical 
impossibility.  Eighteen  thousand  were  the  first  fig- 
ures. The  Atlanta  Constitution,  under  date  of  No- 
vember 8th,  1894,  used  the  following  words :  ' '  Cor- 
ruption run  riot.  Public  sentiment  will  not  tolerate 
any  more  elections  like  the  one  in  the  10th  District. 
The  less  said  about  this  election  the  better  for  the 
good  name  of  the  State."  The  successful  candidate 
carried  but  two  counties  and  Richmond  elected  him. 
The  other  nine  counties  had  no  showing  whatever. 
Congress  seated  the  Richmond  candidate,  who  paid 
coin  time  and  again  through  his  agents  for  hordes 
of  half  drunken  negroes  until  the  number  of  Rich- 
mond county  votes  swelled  to  18,000  ballots.  In  the 
October  election  Richmond  county,  for  governor,  a 
heated  campaign,  voted  only  4,632.  A  month  later 
the  vote  was  swelled  to  18,000  on  election  day — in 
November — both  elections  conducted  by  the  same  men. 

The  same  condition  prevailed  in  Chatham  county, 
where  an  ex-United  States  Senator  told  a  friend  of 
mine,  who  wrote  to  me  immediately,  and  which  letter 
is  now  before  me,  that  Chatham  county  polled  15,000 
votes,  but  there  were  between  7,000  and  8,000  re- 
turned by  the  managers. 

A  prominent  politician  in  Cobb  county  admitted  to 
the  same  friend  that  Dr.  Felton  carried  the  county  by 
a  good  majority  but  they  determined  to  count  him 
out,  and  did  it. 

In  the  other  districts  of  the  State  there  was  con- 
stant complaints  as  to  fraudulent  votings,  but  they 
were  drowned  by  a  continual  Confederate  war-whoop 

194 


and  an  insensate  outcry  against  negro  domination  at 
the  polls.  The  scurvy  politicians  who  used  negroes 
at  the  polls  were  out  in  the  open  screaming:  "Vote 
the  Democratic  ticket  to  protect  the  ballot-box  from 
negro  voters ! ' '  The  outrages  in  the  10th  and  7th  dis- 
tricts made  the  next  Legislature  pass  a  general  regis- 
tration law.  Mr.  Fleming,  of  Richmond,  said:  "The 
people  of  Georgia  want  to  make  a  new  law,  and  God 
knows  they  need  it  in  the  face  of  the  dishonest  frauds 
in  the  last  election.  *  *  the  fraudulent  election 
in  Georgia  is  a  scandal  from  one  end  of  the  continent 
to  the  other,  and  it  must  be  purged  of  the  stigma  in 
order  to  resume  its  rightful  place  in  the  South." 

To  utterly  crush  out  all  those  who  aspired  to  office, 
without  the  permission  and  decree  of  the  dominant 
faction  in  the  State  was  the  order  of  the  day.  A 
Federal  official  who  would  cheat,  or  a  negro  who 
would  vote  with  them  could  perform  no  more  meri- 
torious duty.  To  oppose  the  dominant  faction  was 
enough  to  cost  them  their  official  heads  and  to  send 
negroes  to  the  chain-gang  for  trivial  offenses.  As 
Senator  Bacon  expressed  it  in  the  year  1886 :  ' '  Such 
a  dominion  is  death  to  all  honorable  aspirations  for 
preferment,  because  under  it  preferment  can  only  be 
attained  at  the  cost  of  servile  submission,  and  the 
time  is  not  far  distant  when  within  the  borders  of  the 
State  there  cannot  be  found  in  the  party  a  man  who 
will  offer  himself  up  to  the  sacrifice  which  awaits 
those  who  dare  dispute  its  power."  These  words 
were  written  in  an  address  to  the  Democratic  party 
of  Georgia  after  he  had  been  defeated  for  the  nomi- 
nation of  governor  by  the  influx  of  money  from  the 
outside  and  by  the  Confederate  war-whoop  to  cover 
up  the  men  and  methods  then  prevailing.  Said  Mr. 
Bacon:  "This  absolute  power,  so  dangerous  to  every 
important  interest,  is  now  held  by  a  few  men  who 
have  not  only  possession  to  a  large  extent  of  the  val- 
uable propertv  interests  of  the  State,  but  who  hold 
among  themselves  all  the  important  offices,  and  claim 
the  right  and  power  to  dispense  the  lesser  ones.  Three 
men  in  intimate  personal  and  political  association  and 
alliance,  all  living  practically  in  the  same  town,  with 

195 


action  so  perfect  as  if  one  mind  controlled  all  three. 
At  the  same  time  two  of  them  United  States  Senators 
and  the  other  the  Governor  of  the  State.  It  is  cer- 
tainly the  most  remarkable  political  spectacle  ever 
enacted  on  the  footstool  in  the  face  of  high  Heaven." 

In  discussing  the  congressional  election  in  the  7th 
District,  November,  1894,  seven  years  later,  it  is  prop- 
er to  state  that  the  common  people  of  Georgia  had 
reached  a  place  where  it  took  a  man  of  courage  to  be- 
come a  candidate  for  office,  unless  the  "dominant 
party"  could  use  and  control  him  after  the  election. 
The  risk  was  great,  no  matter  from  what  point  it  was 
viewed.  Attacks  upon  personal  character  were  com- 
mon. The  money  loss  was  likely  to  be  serious,  and 
these  things  engendered  a  cowardly  submission  that 
made  the  dominant  faction  brazen  in  tyranny  and 
oppression. 

The  Democrats  of  the  7th  District  were  not  willing 
to  allow  any  opposition  to  their  candidate,  and  their 
candidate  had  been  a  superior  court  judge  who  could 
be  relied  upon  to  send  ignorant  negroes  to  the  chain- 
gang  and  to  place  very  light  fines  on  the  democratic 
white  men  who  fell  under  the  discipline  of  his  court. 
In  one  day,  October  7,  1891  (Minutes  of  the  Superior 
Court  in  Floyd  county,  page  384,  you  can  find  the 
proof  of  my  statement),  one  Sampson  Jackson,  col- 
ored, was  fined  one  thousand  dollars  and  costs  for 
gambling  with  persons  of  his  own  color,  and  Jno.  M. 
Vandiver,  who  was  caught  in  same  offense  with  others 
of  his  color  (afterward  appointed  postmaster  at  Kome, 
where  Judge  Maddox  lived  then  and  now),  was  sen- 
tenced same  day,  October  7,  1891,  to  a  fine  of  ten  dol- 
lars and  costs.  (I  have  a  copy  of  that  court  record.) 
A  number  of  Rome  gamblers  were  obliged  to  plead 
guilty  but  the  white  sports  were  let  off  lightly  while 
the  negro  gamblers  were  fined  one  thousand  dollars 
and  costs. 

Things  of  this  kind,  used  for  political  effect,  created 
lively  opposition  to  the  candidate  for  Congress.  Taken 
together  with  the  financial  distress  of  that  time,  a  con- 
vention of  the  Populist  party  met  in  Rome  and  de- 
cided to  find,  if  possible,  some  man  of  courage  and 

196 


intelligence  who  would  allow  his  name  to  be  used  in 
a  public  protest  against  a  person  who  could  thus 
use  the  office  of  judge  to  oppress  the  ignorant  and 
helpless  while  he  was  known  to  be  hand-in-glove  with 
a  crowd  that  would  drink  and  gamble  and  escape  the 
penalties  of  the  law,  with  a  judge  of  such  convenient 
quality.  Dr.  Felton,  my  husband,  was  implored  to 
allow  his  name  to  be  placed  at  the  head  of  the  pub- 
lic protest  which  they  were  making  against  the  former 
judge  of  that  judicial  circuit  and  he  consented.  He 
said  to  me:  "It  is  indeed  a  poor  citizen  in  any  coun- 
try who  will  not  serve  when  he  is  drafted  to  lead  a 
revolt  against  tyranny  in  our  courts  or  tyranny  at 
the  ballot  boxes.  Politics  has  filled  the  land  with 
political  judges  and  ballot-box  stuffers.  It  is  the  last 
refuge  of  free  men  to  apply  for  justice  in  the  courts 
of  our  country.  When  courts  fail  and  corruption 
becomes  rampant  on  the  bench  the  time  has  come  to 
rise  up  and  enter  a  protest.  To  reward  political 
judges  with  higher  positions  in  politics  has  become 
prevalent  throughout  Georgia.  They  are  known  to 
be  tyrants  in  judicial  service;  they  cannot  represent 
our  State  fairly  in  congressional  circles." 

I  plead  with  him  to  remember  his  age  and  its  in- 
firmities, and  pointed  out  the  suffering  and  injustice 
that  the  same  order  of  tricksters  had  heaped  upon 
him,  and  how  they  had  cheated  him  at  the  ballot  box, 
and  how  tamely  the  men  of  business  had  put  up  with 
political  methods  which  were  preventing  the  right 
sort  of  immigration  or  the  investment  of  capital  be- 
cause of  the  bad  name  that  Georgia  held  abroad,  etc. 
He  met  me  every  time  with  the  declaration :  ' '  These 
people  ask  me  to  allow  my  name  to  be  voted  for.  They 
are  desperate  with  the  corruption  that  stalks  boldly 
all  over  Georgia.  Somebody  should  be  willing  to  lead 
a  crusade  for  justice  and  fair  elections.  I  cannot  re- 
fuse their  urgent  plea.  I  can  force  the  opposition 
to  show  their  hand.  It  can  then  be  printed,  and  like 
the  'Yazoo  fraud,'  it  will  speak  for  itself  in  the  days 
to  come."     So  the  canvass  opened  in  1894. 

I  shall  not  endeavor  to  give  in  detail  the  carnival 
of  political   corruption   that    prevailed  in    Georgia, 

197 


which  carried  thirty-three  election  contests  to  the 
Georgia  Legislature,  where  the  dominant  faction  had 
counted  themselves  a  majority,  or  the  full  story  of 
the  debauch  in  the  10th  District,  nor  even  the  recital 
of  occurrences  that  are  matters  of  fact  and  of  record 
in  the  7th  District.  But  it  is  due  to  myself  and  to 
those  who  will  come  after  me,  and  to  the  young  men 
and  women  of  Georgia  that  I  should  set  down  in  cor- 
rect form  the  unholy  persecution  that  I  experienced 
in  person,  because  I  gave  my  husband,  Dr.  W.  H. 
Felton,  the  individual  assistance  that  he  needed  and 
which  I  gave  cheerfully.  He  went  to  his  reward  in 
1909,  and  while  he  left  but  small  fortune  to  his  sur- 
vivors, he  did  have  a  name  for  honest  public  service, 
and  a  life  untainted  with  political  corruption  or  bribe 
money.  He  led  a  crusade  that  only  a  brave  man 
could  lead,  and  he  served  his  country  as  a  watchman 
on  a  high  tower. 

The  contest  for  the  congressional  seat  was  made  in 
three  counties,  where  a  registration  law  was  estab- 
lished, Bartow,  Cobb  and  Floyd.  The  remaining 
counties  had  a  go-as-you-please  permit.  Judges  and 
dominant  officials  terrorized  the  people  who  appeared 
as  Felton  witnesses.  A  former  judge  in  Rome  at- 
tacked a  man  who  had  not  been  called  as  a  witness. 
The  solicitor  of  another  court  attacked  my  son  in  the 
contest  court-room,  who  had  not  testified.  The  men 
connected  with  the  judiciary  were  ready  to  fight 
whenever  a  witness  was  called. 

The  Atlanta  Journal  requested  me  to  give  that 
paper  my  account  of  occurrences  in  Washington  City 
at  the  congressional  hearing.  I  have  a  copy  of  the 
same,  just  as  it  was  published  at  the  time.  No  cor- 
rection of  it,  or  complaint  of  it,  was  ever  made.  It 
will  speak  for  itself  and  the  chivalry  of  Georgia  was 
on  trial: 

(From  Atlanta  Journal,  April  29,  1896.) 


MRS.    FELTON'S   STORY. 

She    Gives    a    Graphic    Account    of    the    Hearing    of    Her 

Husband's    Election    Contest    Case. 

The  appearance  of  Mrs.  W.  H.  Felton  of  Georgia,  before 

one  of  the  elections  committees  of  the  house  or  represen- 

198 


tatives  in  Washington  recently  as  counsel  for  her  husband 
presented  a  scene  absolutely  unique  in  congressional  his- 
tory. The  incident  has  never  been  described  in  detail 
and  the  account  of  it  which  follows,  given  by  Mrs.  Felton 
herself,  will,  for  that  reason,  be  found  doubly  interesting. 
The  hearing  of  the  contested  election  case  of  Felton  vs. 
Maddox  took  place  before  house  election  committee  No.  1, 
in  Washington,  April  10th.  What  took  place  is  thus  des- 
cribed to  The  Journal  by  Mrs.  Felton  herself: 

Mrs.    Felton's   Own    Story. 

The  hearing  was  set  for  10  a.  m.  A  full  committee  was 
present.  Judge  Maddox  with  his  counsel,  Judge  Branham 
of  Rome,  and  Solicitor  General  Fite  of  Cartersville.  Dr. 
Felton  was  attended  by  his  Washington  counsel,  General 
W.  W.  Dudley,  of  Dudley  &  Michenor — all  were  on  time. 
Three  hours  are  devoted  to  each  case,  in  this  manner, 
time  equally  divided  between  the  two  parties.  General 
Dudley  had  first  hour.  Mr.  Fite  three-quarters  of  an  hour 
— ditto  to  Judge  Branham — with  remaining  half  hour  to 
General  Dudley.  I  was  present,  also  Judge  Lawson  and 
some  others. 

General  Dudley  is  a  crippled  federal  officer — lost  a  leg 
at  Gettysburg — yet  he  walks  without  a  crutch.  He  out- 
lined the  case  in  his  hour,  referring  to  his  brief  in  the 
case,  frequently  interrupted  by  Judge  Maddox.  He  covered 
the  registration  frauds  in  Bartow  county,  where  300 
legally  qualified  voters,  who  voted  in  October,  were 
stricken  from  verified  lists  and  disfranchised  in  November 
election.  He  proved  the  refusal  to  register  other  300 
voters  for  November  election,  while  Registrar  Ginn  was 
shown  to  be  lenient  to  his  party  friends — exhibited  the 
mutilated  lists — and  proved  by  Maddox's  witnesses  the 
illegalities  and  violations  of  registration  law,  to  carry  out 
the  premeditated  and  systematic  frauds,  to  the  injury  of 
Dr.  Felton.  He  reviewed  Cobb  county — the  contumacy  of 
recalcitrant  Witness  Stanback,  tax  collector  and  registrar, 
who  defied  four  subpoenes — one  with  duces  teum,  and 
never  appeared.  Ordinary  Stone's  open  violation  of  regis- 
tration law — Judge  Gober's  refusal  to  hear  mandamus  suit, 
until  both  October  and  November  election  were  over — the 
disregard  of  all  mandatory  requirements,  and  especially 
the  reasons  for  refusal  to  print  the  lists  used  in  those  two 
elections  as  required.  He  briefly  stated  the  situation  in 
Polk,  Paulding  and  Haralson,  when  his  time  was  up. 

Mr.  Fite's  Defense. 

Mr.  Fite  took  the  floor,  to  show  everything  lovely  in 
Bartow  and  Cobb,  Bartow  in  particular.  Nobody  did  any 
harm — all  were  the  nicest  of  gentlemen,  himself  included, 
everything   was   lovely,   nothing   hateful   but   Felton,   and 

199 


no  need  for  contest.  Turning  to  General  Dudley  he  of- 
fered what  purported  to  be  an  affidavit  from  Esquire  R.  B. 
Gaines,  of  Bartow  county,  the  commissioner  who  took  down 
evidence  for  Dr.  Felton,  charging  Mrs.  Felton  with  writing 
his  statement  and  incorporating  things  not  authorized  by 
himself — in  short,  I  was  charged  with  forging  and  mani- 
pulating this  important  document  to  51st  congress.  In 
answer  to  a  question,  he  said  Mr.  Albert  Johnson,  of  Car- 
tersville,  wrote  the  paper  but  Gaines  signed  it — as  an  af- 
fidavit. 

Her  Respects  to  Judge  Branham. 

Judge  Branham  then  took  the  floor,  and  as  I  had  not 
spoken  to  him  since  the  day  he  assaulted  Hon.  Seaborn 
Wright  in  Rome,  last  year,  in  my  presence,  and  Mr.  Fite 
represented  him  in  the  evidence  as  "small,  delicate  feeble 
gentleman,  in  bad  health — 60  years  old  and  more"  to  pal- 
liate the  outrage  on  Mr.  Wright,  I  was  able  to  congratu- 
late him  (Branham)  on  the  return  to  his  ability  and 
hilarity,  as  soon  as  he  warned  up  to  his  subject. 

He  drew  a  graphic  picture  of  Mr.  John  K.  Davis  in 
Cedartown,  trotting  off  with  a  box  on  his  shoulder,  that 
was  supposed  to  contain  whisky.  The  judge  is  strikingly 
facetious  on  such  occasions  as  this,  and  as  our  Mr.  Davis 
is  able  to  return  compliments  in  kind,  he  will  only  need 
to  portray  the  memorable  scene  before  alluded  to  in  Rome 
to  prove  that  whisky  is  less  harmless  on  the  person's 
shoulder  than  in  other  parts  of  the  human  frame.  Honors 
will  be  easy  in  such  a  controversy. 

Judge  Branham  had  much  to  say  of  Polk.  Haralson  and 
Paulding — but  ten  minutes  would  cover  his  discourse  on 
Floyd,  where  1,217  of  Judge  Maddox's  bloated  majority 
of  1,562,  in  the  district,  was  obtained  with  Wm.  M.  Bridges, 
the  "check  raiser,"  and  absorber  of  state  and  county 
money  to  take  in  ballots,  no  other  manager  at  Rome  being 
permitted  to  touch  them  on  November  6th,  1894,  except 
this  man  Bridges.  I  was  anxious  to  have  him  endorse  Mr. 
Bridges  in  Washington — as  he  did  in  Rome  last  year — 
but  he  left  Floyd  to  take  care  of  its  own  poor  self,  while 
he  humped  himself  over  the  "trotting,"  in  Cedartown,  Ga. 

The  "Sam    Holt   Circular." 

The  suave  and  gentle  judge  had  a  rod  in  pickle  for  me. 
He  declared  Mrs.  Felton  the  author  or  forger  of  a  circular 
used  in  the  campaign  of  1891  and  1894 — -called  the  "Sam. 
Holt  circular,"  which  reads  this  way: 

"Dalton,   Ga.,  November  1st,   1894. 
Mr.  B.  F.  Carter,  Cedartown,  Ga.: 

"Dear  Sir:  Judge  Maddox,  the  present  representative 
from  Seventh  congressional  district  of  Georgia,  in  a  talk 
with  me  on  the   street  the  other  day,   said   he  had  been 

200 


canvassing  the  district  and  would  be  re-elected,  because 
he  had  bought  all  the  leading  negroes  in  each  county,  and 
had  bought  them  cheap  as  they  are  not  worth  much  any 
way  and  should  not  be  allowed  their  vote. 

"SAM  HOLT,  Dalton,  Ga." 
Mr.  B.  F.  Carter  lives  in  Cedartown,  and  one  would  sup- 
pose that  Mr.  Carter  could  have  been  called  to  testify  if 
Judge  Maddox  was  anxious  to  investigate  the  circular,  but 
Judge  Branham  had  the  surprising  cheek  to  rise  in  that 
presence  and  deliberately  charge  me  with  originating  and 
printing,  aye  forging,  that  circular.  He  further  said  he 
owned  negroes  himself  before  the  war,  when  they  were 
expensive  to  him,  he  owned  them  now  when  they  cost 
him  less,  he  expected  to  own  them  to  the  end,  because 
they  made  excellent  servants!  His  climax  was  reached 
with  the  Sam  Holt  circular — he  took  his  seat  fairly  wilted 
in  his  efforts  with  this  circular.  That  is  the  main  argu- 
ment of  the  learned  counsel,  and  Judge  Maddox  sat  by 
saying  "Amen." 

Dudley   For  Dr.  Felton. 

When  General  Dudley  rose  to  reply,  he  said:  "I  have  had 
many  election  contests  to  encounter,  but  never  before 
saw  a  weak  case  bolstered  by  an  attack  on  wife  of  con- 
testant. I  could  not  be  forced  to  attack  a  lady  as  counsel 
— nor  do  I  think  any  other  gentleman  would  do  so.  I  ask 
that  five  minutes  of  my  time  be  given  to  Mrs.  Felton 
to  reply  to  this  outrageous  assault  on  her  integrity." 
Then  he  painted  Rome  until  "Rome  howled."  He  showed 
the  illegality  of  a  county  election  for  bonds,  joined  to  a 
congressional  election — with  same  managers — invalidating 
the  bonds  if  they  had  been  carried  and  fatally  destroying 
the  integrity  of  the  federal  election.  He  called  this  bond 
election  attachment  the  "dead  albatross."  He  exposed  the 
barbecue  with  its  bribe  tickets  openly  given  in  considera- 
tion for  votes — Maddox's  votes.  He  exposed  Mr.  Post- 
master Pepper,  as  the  originator  of  the  barbecue — in  mass 
meetings,  published  in  Rome  Tribune,  October  16,  1894. 
Although  Mr.  Pepper  swore  he  knew  nothing  about  it,  Mr. 
Pepper  ordered  the  eatables,  Mr.  Pepper  superintended 
the  cooking.  Mr.  Pepper  engaged  the  hands,  Mr.  Pepper 
engaged  the  place  to  put  the  eatables  near  the  courthouse, 
Mr.  Pepper  O.  Kd.  the  bills,  Mr.  Pepper  distributed  the 
meats  to  those  persons  who  voted  for  Maddox  and  brought 
a  red  ticket  to  show  for  it,  and  Pepper  swore  that  this 
barbecue  was  fixed  to  catch  the  people  who  would  vote 
for  either  Republican  or  Democrat,  or  for  bonds,  provided 
they  could  sell  their  ballots,  for  a  dollar,  or  half  dollar,  a 
meal,  a  drink  of  whisky  or  a  pair  of  shoes!  Vandiver, 
Moore,  Black  &  Co.,  handing  out  the  red  tickets  around 
the  ballot  box,  presided  over  by  William  M.  Bridges,  to 

201 


be  cashed  by  Postmaster  Pepper,  just  across  the  street, 
and  Judge  Maddox  present  looking  on  at  this  work.  Poor 
house  imbeciles  voted  without  registration  for  Maddox  and 
the  judge  was  shown  to  be  exhorting  his  supporters  to 
vote  without  any  registration  at  Bridges'  box.  General 
Dudley  exposed  one  Hunt,  Judge  Maddox's  private  agent, 
on  that  day — paid  by  Pepper  for  this  scoundrelly  work, 
sitting  aloft  on  the  judge's  stand  holding  Judge  Maddox's 
private  registration  list  at  this  election,  which  was  as  in- 
exorable as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  against 
Felton  supporters.  Hunt  was  not  sworn — not  a  manager 
or  clerk — simply  a  private  agent.  And  there  was  no  other 
list  used  that  day  in  Rome.  "We  found  no  list  could  be 
obtained  in  Floyd  county  except  from  printers.  The  bribe 
tickets  were  carried  to  Flat  Woods  precinct  by  one  Clip 
Williamson,  deputy  sheriff,  to  secure  Maddox  votes.  It  is 
presumed  they  were  sent  all  over  the  county,  as  Mr.  Pep- 
per, swore  the  barbecue  was  eaten  up  by  whites,  so  the 
negroes  must  have  received  something  else  for  the  red 
tickets.  Not  a  Felton  supporter  received  a  ticket,  except 
Henry  Ober,  who  said  there  was  Maddox  whisky  in  the 
basement.     He   was    corroborated   by   another  negro. 

Referred  to  Vandiver. 
General  Dudley  touched  up  Mr.  Vandiver,  the  newly 
appointed  postmaster,  who  was  rabid  in  his  intimidation 
and  use  of  bribe  tickets  for  his  friend  Maddox.  He  said 
Vandiver  had  been  indicted  for  gambling  in  Rome, 
pleaded  guilty,  and  this  generous  Judge  Maddox  sentenced 
him  and  other  white  men  to  $10  and  costs,  while  Sampson 
Jackson,  colored,  was  sentenced  same  day,  October  7,  1891, 
by  same  judge  for  same  offense,  to  $1,000  and  costs.  Judge 
Maddox  sprung  up  to  say  "it  was  absolutely  false!"  "The 
records  of  the  superior  court  in  Floyd  county  will  show 
who  has  falsified,"  said  General  Dudley.  A  "double-header" 
election,  with  same  managers — no  labels  on  the  two  boxes, 
and  absolutely  controlled  by  these  bribe-givers  all  over 
Floyd  county,  for  at  Livingston  precinct  Felton  tickets 
were  concealed  in  his  pocket  by  one  of  the  managers,  until 
12  o'clock,  and  he,  a  postmaster  of  Judge  Maddox's  own 
choosing  .  One  Webb,  not  a  manager,  took  the  bond  and 
congress  ballots  at  same  time  at  Livingston.  Do  you 
wonder  that  Livingston  gave  Maddox  138  votes  and  Felton 
8?  Who  knows  how  many  bond  ballots  were  thus 
counted?  At  Howells,  the  manager  swears  he  took  the 
congress  ballots  in  his  own  grip,  with  his  own  private 
papers.  The  election  in  Rome,  where  nearly  one  thousand 
votes  were  counted  to  Maddox  by  "Checkraiser"  Bridges, 
was  held  on  upper  floor  of  courthouse.  A  voter  had  to 
ascend  a  short  flight  of  steps  to  first  floor,  and  a  long 
flight  to  second  floor,  and  suffer  the  pulling,  hauling,  in- 

202 


timidating  and  preventing  by  a  horde  of  officeholding 
tyrants  and  officeseeking  partisans  of  Maddox  to  finally 
reach  "Check-raiser"  Bridges  at  the  ballot  box,  and  be 
read  off  the  list  by  Usurper  Hunt.  And  2,214  votes  were 
counted  that  day  in  Rome — 1,107  at  bond  box — with  all  the 
Populists  nearly  opposed  to  the  bonds,  and  the  same  num- 
ber at  Bridges'  box.  With  640  minutes  (from  7  a.  m.  to  6 
in  the  evening)  in  the  day,  count  for  yourself,  and  see  what 
sort  of  voting  that  called  for!  Bribes,  whis,ky,  intimida- 
tion, fraud,  all  rampant  in  contestee's  presence.  With 
brief  allusion  to  Cobb  and  Bartow,  his  twenty-five  minutes 
were  exhausted.  Immediately,  chivalrie  Judge  Maddox 
demanded  time  to  reply  to  Mrs.  Felton.  "No  sir,"  said 
Chairman  Daniels.  "No,  sir,"  said  General  Dudley,  "she 
takes  my  time,  I  give  it  to  her."  I  thus  was  cheated  of 
one  minute  of  the  precious  five.  I  said  substantially  these 
words: 

Mrs.    Felton's   Speech. 

"You  have  been  told  Dr.  Felton  adjourned  the  hearings 
in  Bartow  county  without  cause,  I  will  tell  you  why.  This 
A.  W.  Fite  traversed  the  Seventh  district  before  the  elec- 
tion to  defame  our  reputation,  slanderously  charging  Dr. 
Felton  with  receiving  a  bribe  in  the  Georgia  legislature, 
and  charging  me  with  concealing  the  bribe  money.  When 
this  man  was  selected  by  Judge  Maddox  to  sit  opposite 
to  us,  during  this  contest,  to  intimidate  and  browbeat  our 
witnesses,  consuming  the  first  day  on  one  witness,  Dr. 
Felton  lost  patience  and  called  him  a  scoundrel,  who  had 
defamed  his  family.  Next  morning  this  man  entered  the 
courtroom — ready  as  he  declared  for  a  cutting  and  shoot- 
ing scrape;  prepared,  but  he  would  not  fight  the  old  man, 
but  he  had  a  son  21  years  old  by  his  side;  he  was  ready  for 
him — and  leaning  across  the  table  hissed  'you  coward,' 
in  my  son's  face,  who  was  a  subpoenaed  witness,  and  had 
not  opened  his  mouth  in  public  to  anybody.  I  have  but 
one  child,  gentlemen,  but  four  are  in  heaven,  and  we  had 
all  we  could  bear  without  more  of  this  man's  insolence  and 
desire  for  strife. 

"You  have  been  told  I  falsified  Esquire  Gaines'  certifi- 
cate. I  will  make  oath  before  you  that  he  (Gaines)  signed 
the  paper  printed  in  this  record,  and  not  a  word  has  been 
changed  by  me.  I  believe  this  new  document  has  been 
given  under  duress,  if  it  is  genuine,  but  no  character  is 
safe  when  such  men  can  thus  inject  their  venom  into  your 
presence." 

(P.  S. — Esquire  Gaines  has  promptly  repudiated  the 
whole  thing  and  swears  he  never  gave  an  affidavit  which 
assaulted  my  integrity.) 

"You  have  been  told  I  forged  the  Sam  Holt  circular.  I 
present  you  an  affidavit  signed  before  the  proper  author- 
ity which  I  will  read  to  you.     B.  F.  Carter  testified  that 

203 


he  received  the  letter  from  Sam  Holt  at  Cedartown  post- 
office,  where  he  lives.  He  printed  and  circulated  it,  that 
neither  Dr.  Felton,  his  wife  or  his  family  had  a  thing  to  do 
with  it.  Judge  Maddox  subpoenaed  Carter  to  appear  in 
Cedartown.  Carter  appeared,  told  Judge  Maddox  he  was 
ready  to  answer  any  question,  but  Maddox  declined  to 
examine  Carter  as  a  witness.  Carter  was  the  legally 
elected  sheriff  of  Polk  county,  but  dispossessed  of  the 
office  by  judge  of  superior  court,  Judge  Janes,  who  de- 
clared the  office  vacant,  and  a  Democrat  not  elected  was 
put  in  it.  Carter  was  four  years  postmaster  under  General 
Harrison  at  Cedartown,  and  a  Republican.  Said  I.  'This 
is  my  answer  to  this  infamous  charge  of  forgery.  I  had 
nothing  to  do  with  printing  or  originating  the  circular.' 
I  wish  to  say  to  you  that  this  man  F'ite  assaulted  another 
of  our  witnesses — ordered  the  sheriff  of  Bartow  county 
to  search  him  without  a  warrant — and  the  sheriff  obeying 
this  attorney,  pushed  witness  violently  into  the  hall — on 
his  way  to  jail  with  him — until  the  witness  produced  the 
fine. 

"I  saw  Judge  Branham  attack  Hon.  Seaborn  Wright  in 
Rome — our  witness — although  he  had  not  said  a  word  in 
court  at  that  time,  rushing  the  length  of  this  room,  yelling 
out  these  words,  with  his  arm  drawn  back  to  strike: 
'Seaborn  Wright,  I  pronounce  you  a  liar,  and  I'll  slap 
your    jaws.' " 

My  four  minutes  were  out — the  hearing  closed. 

Hit  at  Charlie  Bartlett. 

Hon.  Charles  Bartlett,  member  from  Macon,  Ga.,  who, 
according  to  Mr.  E.  W.  Barrett,  the  correspondent  of  the 
Atlanta  Constitution,  was  placed  by  Mr.  Crisp's  influence 
on  this  committee  to  be  ready  for  the  Felton-Maddox  case 
(the  statement  published  last  December)  showed  himself 
eagerly  active  for  Judge  Maddox.  A  gentleman  remarked 
to  me:  "The  judge  has  one  attorney  on  the  committee." 
He  rose  to  interrupt  me  to  say  the  supreme  court  sus- 
tained Judge  Janes  in  the  Carter  case.  I  replied,  "You 
are  mistaken.  The  supreme  court  of  Georgia  announced 
it  had  no  jurisdiction  in  the  case.  It  was  a  political  affair, 
not  judicial."  These  elections  committees  occupy  the  posi- 
tion of  judges,  to  decide  according  to  the  law  and  the 
evidence,  and  Judge  Bartlett's  open  animosity  surprised 
me  very  greatly.  I  was  also  informed  that  he  expected  to 
have  a  contest  in  his  own  district  next  fall,  and  had  al- 
ready spoken  to  an  attorney  in  Washington  to  conduct 
his  case  in  such  an  event.  I  think  it  likely  he  will  have  a 
contest  for  the  nomination  as  Hon.  Tom  Cabaniss  was  up- 
rooted with  only  one  term,  thus  setting  the  precedent  by 
Mr.  Bartlett  himself. 

I  still  hold  the  telegram  sent  by  Carter  to  me  in 
"Washington  City :    ' '  Produce  my  affidavit  as  to  Holt 

204 


circular.  You  were  entirely  ignorant  of  its  origin. 
The  circular  is  genuine.  Signed,  B.  F.  Carter,  Chair- 
man Rep.  Ex.  Com.  7th  Dist." 

Mr.  Gaines  also  mailed  affidavit,  contradicting  Fife's 
arguments.  I  still  hold  the  telegram  that  was  sent 
by  his  friends  and  he  is  still  living  to  answer. 

Judge  Maddox,  former  judge  of  Rome  Circuit; 
Judge  Branham,  former  judge  of  Rome  Circuit,  and 
Judge  Fite,  afterwards  judge  of  Cherokee  Circuit, 
were  the  originators  and  perpetrators  of  this  outrage 
upon  me.  My  sole  offense  was  giving  assistance  to 
my  husband  against  this  most  diabolical  political  con- 
spiracy to  defeat  the  will  of  the  people  in  choosing 
their  representatives. 

Such  judges  were  then  elected  by  the  Legislature. 
The  people  of  Georgia  lost  faith  in  their  legislators, 
elected  as  they  were  by  the  dominant  faction,  as  ex- 
plained by  Senator  Bacon. 

The  corruption  of  the  judiciary  in  Georgia  has  been 
more  than  once  exposed  in  legislative  investigations, 
but  it  is  well  understood  that  the  "dominant  faction" 
elected  the  judges  at  the  time  when  a  negro  could  be 
sent  to  the  chain-gang  for  ten  years  for  stealing  three 
eggs  or  for  stealing  a  bowl  of  milk,  and  a  negro  girl 
fifteen  years  old  in  Atlanta  was  sent  to  the  peniten- 
tiary for  five  years  for  snatching  fifty  cents  from  the 
hand  of  a  smaller  negro.  The  dominant  faction  made 
a  half  million  annually  out  of  a  convict  lease,  and 
the  judge  who  could  send  able-bodied  negroes  to  the 
pen  was  well  worth  electing ! 

Later  developments  and  exposures  in  the  National 
Congress,  where  the  Methodist  Publishing  House 
claim,  and  the  devices  of  the  Pacific  R.  R.  managers 
when  laid  bare,  have  thrown  light  on  the  why  and 
wherefore  of  the  antagonisms  that  Dr.  Felton's  can- 
didacy inspired  in  1894. 

The  Methodist  Publishing  House  claim  became  a 
stench  in  the  nostrils  of  the  Methodists  of  Georgia, 
and  Pacific  Railroad  money  betrayed  itself  in  sev- 
eral fraudulent  elections  and  reached  up  in  suspicion 
to  governors  and  senators  in  Georgia. 

205 


Before  leaving  this  fraudulent  election  in  Rome, 
there  was  a  negro  voter,  named  Ober,  who  testified 
that  Maddox  liquor  was  abundant  in  court  house  base- 
ment, but  he  could  not  get  any  unless  he  voted  for 
Maddox.  In  a  few  days  he  was  arrested,  carried 
by  the  official  to  Piedmont,  Ala.,  and  placed  in  prison 
on  the  charge  of  selling  a  pint  of  whiskey  in  that 
Alabama  town,  four  years  before.  This  goes  to 
to  show  that  Dr.  Felton  was  to  be  congratulated  that 
he  was  not  assassinated  by  the  toughs  and  that  I 
should  return  thanks  that  these  political  judges  did 
not  arraign  me  in  their  courts  and  attempt  to  send 
me  to  the  Georgia  chain-gang.  Poor  Ober!  He  was 
imprisoned  for  months,  never  had  a  trial,  no  one 
appeared  against  him  and  he  was  turned  loose  to  make 
his  way  back  to  Rome,  without  a  dollar  of  recom- 
pense for  false  charges. 

The  contests  before  the  Legislature  ended  as  did 
the  contests  before  Congress.  Every  judge  and 
officer  of  the  court  were  Democrats.  Their  living  de- 
pended on  pleasing  the  "men  in  control."  The  pro- 
test before  Congress  amounted  to  nothing  except  a 
record  was  made  and  the  infamies  were  exposed.  It 
was  a  time  in  Congress  when  Pacific  Railroad  money 
elected  senators  and  representatives  in  various  States. 
It  was  also  a  time  when  a  noted  lobbyist  was  pressing 
a  claim  for  the  Southern  Methodist  church,  and  he 
was  openly  accused  of  coming  to  Georgia  to  elect  a 
congressman.  His  plan  succeeded  and  his  congress- 
men were  elected  or  counted  in.  His  wrath  against 
me  found  vent  in  his  Nashville  newspaper  in  which 
I  was  charged  with  "looting  the  U.  S.  Treasury  of 
$2,000."  His  friend  Maddox,  after  he  was  seated  by 
reason  of  various  influences  well  known  and  under- 
stood, took  a  fling  at  me,  claiming  that  I  had  turned 
lawyer  and  carried  my  husband's  contest  case  to  Con- 
gress to  secure  $2,000  dollars.  This  brazen  charge 
was  made  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives. Not  a  man  from  Georgia  had  courage  to  call 
him  down,  and  yet  Maddox  knew  and  actually  under- 
stood that  there  was  in  the  capitol  at  that  very  time 
an  itemized  statement  in  the  clerk's  office,  showing  the 

206 


expenditure  of  every  dollar  of  the  expense  money, 
with  vouchers  and  receipts  attached,  and  my  husband 
published  the  whole  matter  afterwards  with  abun- 
dant proof  that  the  lobbyist  and  his  friend  Maddox 
had  maliciously  and  wilfully  made  statements  that 
were  absolutely  false,  intending  to  defame  my  good 
name,  where  I  was  not  allowed  a  hearing  or  notified 
of  the  lying  charges  there  promulgated. 

I  had  no  notice  that  the  false  charges  concerning 
the  "Gaines'  affidavit,"  or  "Sam  Holt  circular"  were 
to  be  presented  at  the  contest  hearing.  All  the  mat- 
ter to  be  presented  was  supposed  to  be  laid  before 
the  elections  committee,  duly  signed  and  sworn  to, 
but  these  judges  turned  into  attorneys  for  the  sake 
of  the  $2,000  allowed  to  Judge  Maddox  for  contest 
expenses,  made  these  attacks  upon  my  integrity  be- 
fore the  elections  committee.  It  would  have  been 
folly  to  have  carried  this  case  before  any  Georgia 
judge.  They  owed  their  promotion  to  the  very  men 
who  were  at  the  bottom  of  these  election  infamies. 
As  Senator  Bacon  truly  said  it  was  the  "most  as- 
tonishing spectacle  before  high  Heaven."  I  wrote 
down  at  Mr.  Gaines'  request  the  facts  that  were  es- 
tablished at  a  hearing  in  Cartersville,  because  he  said 
I  could  write  it  more  clearly.  He  thanked  me  for 
thus  obliging  him  and  signed  the  paper  and  gave  it 
in,  under  oath,  as  the  truth  and  the  facts.  The 
' '  Sam  Holt  circular ' '  I  never  saw  until  it  was  printed 
and  circulated,  and  had  never  heard  before  of  its 
existence.  That  such  men  as  those  judges  herein 
named  should  have  ever  been  commissioned  to  oc- 
cupy the  bench,  to  sit  upon  the  lives  and  property 
of  the  citizens  of  Georgia,  gives  fair  evidence  of  the 
low  estate  to  which  Georgia  had  fallen  in  1894. 


ADDRESS    DELIVERED    BEFORE    JOINT    COMMITTEE, 

HOUSE   AND   SENATE,    NOVEMBER    1895. 

There   Were   100,000   Copies    Printed    and    Circulated    Over 

Georgia. 


MRS.   FELTON'S   APPEAL. 

The  following-  is  the  address  of  Mrs.  Felton  before  the 
joint   committee   of   the   house   and    senate   on   Nov.    7th. 

207 


We  are  sorry  we  haven't  the  space  to  publish  the  able  ad- 
dresses of  other  leading  prohibitionists  on  this  occasion. 
We  will  however  give  some  of  them  later  on. 

"We  come  before  you  today,"  said  she,  "to  present  the 
appeal  of  the  mothers  of  the  state  of  Georgia,  who  are 
praying  every  day  that  the  barroom  may  be  removed  from 
their  midst  and  their  children  delivered  from  such  tempta- 
tion and  the  destruction  that  follows. 

"As  I  look  in  the  faces  of  those  honorable  gentlemen 
and  remember  that  you  are  commissioned  to  be  the 
guardians  of  the  best  interest  of  the  women  and  children 
in  the  state,  I  make  free  to  present  this  appeal  as  a 
matter  of  right,  as  well  as  of  courtesy.  While  you  are 
called  upon  to  protect  cities  and  counties  that  have  police 
and  authority  to  protect  themselves,  I  come  to  bespeak 
protection  for  mothers. 

"I  remember  something  else  that  touches  my  heart, 
namely,  that  each  and  every  one  of  you  had  once  a 
mother.  Whether  your  mother,  like  mine,  is  still  with 
you,  trembling  with  three  score  and  ten  years  of  feeble- 
ness and  loss  of  strength,  or  has  passed  to  the  reward 
beyond  the  Jordan  of  death  I  can  safely  say  that  you 
know  and  I  know  that  there  is  no  more  unselfish  love  and 
self-sacrificing  devotion  than  our  mothers  have  given  to 
their  children. 

"I  now  ask  you  to  turn  in  your  thoughts  upon  the 
homes  and  firesides  of  this  country  and  then  tell  me  if 
there  is  any  class  of  citizenship,  or  order  of  human  beings, 
any  sex  or  species,  that  have  superior  claims  upon  this 
country  for  protection  in  their  homes  and  protection  to 
their  offspring. 

"I  am  not  here  to  detail  the  results  of  intemperance.  It 
would  be  like  illustrating  your  prison  walls  to  show  the 
prisoners  that  jails  were  the  legal  lodging  place  for  crimi- 
nals and  murderers.  The  reality  is  so  much  worse  than 
I  could  picture  in  words  that  it  beggars  description. 

"The  question  that  I  bring  to  you  to  decide  upon  today 
is  a  very  plain  and  simple  one,  namely:  Do  you  consider 
the  saloon  keepers  of  Georgia  of  superior  importance  to 
the  mothers  of  this  country  and  the  safety  of  their  off- 
spring? 

"There  can  be  no  temporizing,  no  hesitation  in  the 
decision  you  will  make — you  will  either  prefer  one  or  the 
other.     Which  shall  be? 

"When  the  Almighty  Father  placed  the  burden  of  ma- 
ternity upon  women — made  her  the  custodian  of  the  in- 
fant in  the  critical  period  of  its  life.— He  said  to  the  father 
train  up  that  child  in  the  way  it  shall  go;  and  when  it 
is  old  it  will  not  depart  from  it.  The  Lord  blessed  Abra- 
ham, His  servant  because  he  would  command  his  children 
and  his  household  after  him,  that  they  should  keep  the 
way  of  the  Lord  to  do  justice  and  judgment. 

208 


"The  burden  of  motherhood  lies  upon  the  woman,  but 
the  burden  of  protection  and  good  example  lies  upon 
man — that  the  offspring  shall  be  able  to  do  justice  and 
judgment  to  the  Maker  and   others. 

The  issue  is  clearly  stated,  and  I  am  here  to  say  to  you, 
measuring  my  words,  in  the  sight  of  God  and  the  pres- 
ence of  this  assembly,  no  child  should  be  thrust  upon  an 
unfriendly  world  that  is  denied  the  privilege  of  a  sober 
home  to  be  borne  into,  with  clean  blood  in  its  veins,  un- 
stained by  hereditary  diseases  that  follow  upon  drunk- 
enness. Anything  wnich  disregards  this  vested  right  is 
rank  injustice  to  the  child  which  comes  here  without  its 
consent.  Anything  less  than  this  protection  to  the  mother 
who  goes  down  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow  to  give  an 
immortal  soul  its  being  is  wanton  cruelty  to  the*  innocent 
and  deserving  that  must  and  will  bring  retribution  upon 
its  perpetrators  and  authors.  All  other  duties  and  obliga- 
tions pale  into  insignificance  when  the  eternal  destiny  of 
the  human  race  is  thus  involved  and  this  question  cannot  be 
evaded  when  it  is  proposed  to  perpetuate  crime  factories 
and  the  sinkholes  of  perdition — that  nobody  ever  claims 
will  elevate  or  make  prosperous  the  votaries  of  the  saloon. 

"It  cannot  be  disputed  tnat  protection  from  the  dramshop 
means  more  to  the  mothers  of  this  country  than  any 
other  class  or  condition  of_  our  people.  Deprivation  of 
protection  and  the  lack  of  restraining  laws  also  mean 
more  of  injured  mother  love  than  any  other  loss  or  de- 
privation that  it  ever  encounters. 

"Motherhood  should  be  carefully  protected,  guarded  and 
defended  as  no  other  interest,  no  matter  what  it  may  rep- 
resent, can  deserve  or  demand. 

"To  state  this  fact  is  simply  to  affirm  it.  For  the  sake 
of  those  yet  to  come  as  well  as  for  those  already  here, 
every  known  avenue  of  crime,  temptation  and  evil  sug- 
gestion should  be  rigidly  closed  to  the  child  whose  moral 
and  physical  traits  are  molded  or  branded  by  the  unerring 
laws  of  heredity,  as  well  as  the  circumstances  of  environ- 
ment. 

The  bearing,  nursing  and  training  of  the  coming  millions 
are  the   problems   of  the  age. 

"This  high  and  holy  estate  of  motherhood  should  appeal 
to  you  and  all  others  as  no  influence  may  equal  or  surpass. 

"The  mystery  of  human  life  in  its  beginning,  the  absorb- 
ing devotion  of  the  mother  to  her  children,  the  holy  light 
in  her  eyes  as  they  rest  upon  her  innocent  babe,  oh,  my 
friends,  what  is  there  sweeter,  purer,  more  angelic  in  this 
world  than  a  mother's  smile  for  her  first  born?  Does  not 
this  question  of  protection  to  the  home  and  to  this  pure 
mother  love  clarify  itself  of  all  doubt  when  you  contrast 
the  drunken  father  and  the  drunken  fireside  with  the 
vested  right  of  mother  love? 

209 


"You  know  that  inherited  traits,  both  good  and  bad, 
are  unerringly  reproduced  in  succeeding  generations. 
Diseases  are  transmitted  as  well  as  traits,  appetites  and 
personal  features. 

"Sowing  wild  oats  may  be  considered  a  diversion  for  this 
period,  but  what  a  crop  is  then  harvested  by  the  innocent 
loyal,  unsuspecting  wives  of  this  generation!  How  many 
mothers  do  you  know  who  have  kept  tbeir  own  lives  un- 
spotted from  filthiness  of  the  flesh  and  appetite  who  are 
tortured  to  explain  or  understand  the  low  tastes  and  de- 
praved morals  of  their  own  offsprings? 

"We  have  all  watched  the  development  of  family  weak- 
nesses that  seem  to  defy  both  grace  and  gospel,  and  the 
curse  that  follows  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation 
is  obliged  to  be  an  inherited  curse. 

"What  would  thousands  of  poor  mothers  do  unless  the 
Almighty  Father  had  promised  also  to  show  mercy  unto 
thousands  forever  and  forever? 

"Motherhood,  when  it  is  well  informed,  shrinks  with 
horror  from  the  entailed  curse  of  inebriety,  and  no  reform 
can  protect  from  the  inherited  evil  of  drunkenness — that 
does  not  root  out  the  generating  curse — that  does  not  ex- 
terminate the  crime  producer. 

"An  evil  which  generates  law  breakers,  lunatics,  sui- 
cides, and  murderers  and  which  can  be  transmitted  from 
parent  to  child,  should  not  only  be  rigidly  surpressed, 
but  should  be  kept  absolutely  away  from  the  unborn 
child. 

"To  license  an  evil  which  always  debases  the  parent  of 
the  helpless  victim  is  manifest  injustice  to  society  and 
criminal  wrong  to  helpless  innocence. 

"The  character  of  these  children  is  lifted  up  or  lowered 
down  by  the  homes  they  are  born  into.  As  the  mother 
heart  of  this  nation  becomes  awakened  and  feels  the 
quickening  power  of  education  and  comprehension  of  their 
danger  we  shrink  with  unutterable  loathing  from  terrors 
that  threaten  with  such  force  our  peace  and  prosperity. 

"Barrooms  are  always  a  constant  menace  to  the  peace 
and  happiness  of  these  mothers.  With  blandishing  en- 
ticements they  are  sure  to  gloat  over  victims  in  plenty,  as 
the  poor  wretches  yield  one  after  another,  their  character 
and  happiness,  disappear  in  the  gilded  saloons  and  their 
money  passes  into  the  pockets  of  the  liquor  seller. 

"Now,  gentlemen,  which  will  you  choose?  Which  is 
more  valuable  to  Georgia,  these  children  of  the  saloons? 
Will  you  protect  these  women  or  will  you  soil  your  palms 
with  license  money,  turning  over  these  mothers  and  their 
children  to  the  destroyer? 

"Friends,  I  feel  proud  to  call  you  the  friends  of  our 
women  and  children  and  our  homes.  Did  you  ever  con- 
sider the  name  and  nature  of  this  license  to  barrooms? 
You  know  your  neighbor's  children  are  dragged  down  to 

210 


perdition  by  these  sin-cursed  dram-shops,  no  matter  if  your 
own  children  are  protected  from  their  allurements. 

"The  saloons  in  Georgia  offer  bribes  to  the  state  every 
time  they  apply  for  a  license  to  sell  the  accursed  poison 
to  your  neighbor  and  your  neighbor's  children,  and  shall 
I  say  it,  the  state  of  Georgia  says  to  the  saloonist,  'Give 
me  your  money  and  I  will  give  you  liberty  to  debauch  the 
last  man  and  woman  in  the  community.'  You  know  they 
upset  the  peace  of  the  neighborhood.  You  know  they  in- 
stigate broils  and  foment  strife.  You  know  they  generate 
murder  and  open  the  door  to  every  sin.  You  know  they 
multiply  courts,  jails  and  chaingangs.  You  know  they 
are  the  source  of  moral  abominations.  When  will  the 
public  mind  grasp  the  enormity  of  this  real,  definite,  burn- 
ing wrong  of  selling  permission  to  destroy  our  children. 

"There  can  be  no  honorable  compromise  with  a  crime 
producer.  Compromise  of  any  sort  on  this  line  is  simply 
surrender.  If  it  is  proper  or  legal  to  establish  a  hot  bed 
of  sin  to  propagate  or  raise  so-called  city  revenue,  it  is 
equally  proper  to  establish  and  foster  any  other  den  of 
iniquity   for   the  license   money  you   can   make  out  of  it. 

"Startling  as  it  may  appear,  there  is  equal  right  to  legal- 
ize the  destruction  of  a  child's  virtue — nay,  more,  when 
you  legalize  the  production  of  drunkards  you  open  the 
door  to  every  other  crime  in  the  calendar. 

"Any  license  to  do  or  commit  evil  inflicts  a  wrong  upon 
the  exposed  community.  You  know  how  character  is 
slowly  but  certainly  undermined,  and  legislators,  when  you 
look  upon  a  drunkard  who  has  lost  his  situation,  his 
character,  his  health  and  his  happiness,  I  ask  you  if  the 
license  money  that  the  dram  shop  pays  for  this  ghastly 
privilege  is  a  quid  pro  quo  for  that  wreck  of  soul  and 
body? 

"Fifty  years  from  today,  perhaps  sooner,  public  opinion 
will  look  back  with  scorn  and  contempt  upon  a  generation 
which  deliberately  sold  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  the  peo- 
ple for  license  money.  But  I  will  only  ask  you  to  go  home 
with  the  drunkard  and  stay  one  night  with  the  mother 
and  her  children  who  are  shut  up  within  four  walls  and 
compelled  to  watch  and  wait  upon  the  debauchee  until  he 
gets  off  into  a  drunken  stupor  or  makes  night  hideous  to 
his  frightened  wife  and  children.  You  can  get  away  from 
him,  but  that  long  suffering  woman  must  live  with  and 
endure  him.  No  other  family  would  tolerate  him  for  an 
hour.  The  rumseller  woud  push  him  into  the  street  and 
the  policeman  would  shove  him  into  the  station  house 
if  he  had  no  money.  But  that  woman,  his  wife,  the  mother 
of  his  children,  must  bear  the  shame,  the  degradation  and 
disgrace  that  the  rumseller  shall  make  big  money  for 
himself  and  the  city,  and  that  cities  and  towns  shall  have 
fine  bridges  or  expensive  courthouses,  jails,  etc.  It  is 
an  awful  demand,  give  me  your  money  or  give  me  death! 

211 


What  does  it  matter  if  woruen  and  children  are  destroyed? 

"Gentlemen,  I  make  no  fight  against  the  poor  drunkard. 
I  pity  him  for  his  own  and  for  his  mother's  sake.  I  have 
nothing  to  say  to  the  man  who  would  buy  liberty  to  des- 
troy these  men,  their  wives  and  children.  I  simply  con- 
trovert the  idea  that  any  man  or  body  of  men  have  the 
right  to  sell  to  another  the  permission  to  debase  his  fel- 
lowman  and  destroy  him  utterly  with  his  drink  poison. 
God  knows  I  feel  no  personal  ill  will  to  these  people  who 
are  thus  mistaken  as  to  their  privileges.  The  right  to 
make  money  by  lawful  and  honorable  means  is  every 
man's  privilege,  but  it  can  never  be  a  legitimate  trade 
which  does  nothing  but  injure,  nothing  but  destroy,  noth- 
ing but  madden — which  destroys  both  soul  and  body  for- 
ever more. 

"You  sell  other  poisons  under  heavy  restrictions,  and 
nobody  questions  the  right  of  a  community  to  prevent  the 
sale  of  strychnine,  opium  or  arsenic.  The  police  can  raid 
an  opium  den  and  keep  within  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the 
law,  but  this  alcoholic  poison  is  protected,  fostered  and 
cultivated  by  our  public  officials,  until  I  sometimes  wonder 
if  common  sense  and  common  decency  have  been  abolished 
from  the  community  at  large. 

"The  vending  of  intoxicants  that  debase  character  is 
clearly  a  nuisance.  The  public  mind  is  so  sensitive  that  a 
butchershop  must  keep  to  a  back  street  and  slaughter 
pen  must  get  out  of  town,  but  this  butchery  of  human 
life  and  spoliation  of  human  character  can  go  on  in  the 
principal  streets  of  Atlanta  and  other  towns  and  cities. 
A  man  who  carries  a  concealed  weapon  will  be  tried  and 
sentenced  in  all  the  courts  and  made  to  pay  heavy  fines 
to  appease  offended  public  dignity,  but  the  dry  towns  are 
full  of  jugs  and  the  country  is  taxed  to  exhaustion  to  bear 
its  burdens,  and  nobody  seems  to  be  convicted  for  selling 
illicit  whisky.  If  your  neighbor  objects  to  your  mill  dam 
or  a  green  scum  arising  on  the  water,  he  need  only  wink 
his  eye  at  the  judge  and  jury  and  down  you  will  come 
with  dam  and  damages;  but  a  liquor  saloon  can  buy  its 
way  into  the  open  thoroughfares,  and  your  child  must  go 
to  school,  to  market  or  the  postoffice  with  contact  with 
all  its  outside  filth  and  dangers  if  it  escapes  the  inside 
degradation  and  death;  but  that  license  money  satisfies 
the  public  conscience  and  the  saloonist  becomes  the  pet 
and  protegee  of  these  town  councils. 

Your  inconsistency  in  dealing  with  known  public  nui- 
sances is  as  remarkable  as  your  extraordinary  leniency 
with  dramshops  which  absolutely  destroy  mothers  and 
their  children.  Why  strain  at  the  gnat  of  correcting 
trifling  public  nuisances  and  yet  swallow  the  camel  of 
this    great    drink    octopus? 

"In  conclusion,  I  ask  you,  the  law  makers  of  Georgia, 
to  look  at  this  anti-barroom  bill  with  all  the  front  and  side 

212 


lights  thrown  over  it.  Can  you  afford,  as  responsible  guar- 
dians of  the  helpless  classes  of  society,  to  use  your  author- 
ity to  build  up  these  death-making  institutions  over  the 
prayerful  protest  of  the  women  of  the  state? 

Can  you  stand  in  your  places,  sworn  to  do  your  duty, 
in  the  fear  of  God  and  the  presence  of  all  Georgia,  and 
choose  the  saloon  in  preference  to  the  protection  of 
mothers  and  all  they  love  and  cherish  in  their  homes? 
Shall  we  lean  upon  you  as  our  protectors  or  will  you 
leave  us  defenseless? 


THE   WOMAN'S    PRESS   CLUB    OF   GEORGIA. 


Atlanta,    March    12th,    1902. 
My  dear  Mrs.   Felton: 

At  a  meeting  of  the  executive  board  of  the  Woman's 
Press  Club  of  Georgia — that  met  yesterday — you  were  un- 
animously elected  to  meet  with  us  in  June  and  encourage 
us  with  your  words  of  wisdom.  We  wish  to  make  our 
next  meeting  the  most  profitable  one  to  our  Press  women 
we  have  yet  had.  I  am  requested  by  the  board  to  ask 
you  to  give  us  a  lecture  at  that  time,  second  Wednesday 
in  June,  (I  thing  it  comes  on  the  10th.)  You  of  course 
will  be  on  the  evening  program.  Two  subjects  were  sug- 
gested: "Attitude  of  the  press  on  some  civic  problems," 
and  "Practical  suggestions  for  young  journalists."  Could 
you  not  speak  on  both? 

I  need  not  tell  you  how  much  we  want  you  and  need  you 
— your  very  presence  would  be  an  inspiration  and  your 
presence  and  words  combined  are  invaluable.  Now  dear 
Mrs.  Felton  don't  refuse  us  and  be  sure  you  wear  that 
white  bonnet.  I  can  see  you  now  with  my  mind's  eye — 
how  sweet  you  looked;  now,  this  is  not  taffy.  I  mean  it. 
Hoping  to  have  a  favorable  answer  from  you  soon  I  am 
sincerely  your  friend, 

A.   C.   KING. 
Pres.  Women's  Press  Association. 

480  Courtland  Ave. 


PROMINENT  WOMEN   IN  JOURNALISM:    MRS.  FELTON 
DISCUSSES    THE    SUBJECT. 


(Atlanta    Constitution.) 

Women   In   Journalism. 
No  woman  in  Georgia  is  better  qualified  to  discuss  the 
subject    of   women    in   journalism    than    Mrs.    William    H. 
Felton,  who  has  not  only  seen  the  birth  of  Georgia  women 

213 


in  the  profession,  but  who  was  herself  the  first  woman 
to  own  and  edit  her  own  newspaper  in  the  state.  What 
she  said  in  her  address  to  the  press  club  Wednesday  night 
was  every  word  of  interest,  and  of  value,  and  she  is  a 
woman  who  never  indulges  in  theories  and  sentiment  to 
the  extent  when  principle  and  practice  are  left  out. 

In  her  opening  remarks  Mrs.  Felton  referred  to  the  first 
newspaper,  the  old  Southern  Recorder,  and  the  sensation  it 
created,  and,  with  an  amused  expression,  she  observed: 

"If  one  of  these  ladies  before  me  had  been  there  and 
had  adventured  a  line  in  the  columns  of  either  of  those 
two  rival  newspapers,  I  can  readily  see  what  would  have 
happened;  but  words  fail  me  to  suitably  frame  such  an 
unsupposable  incident.  That  time  was  certainly  not  ripe 
for  women  journalists.  Not  only  would  bonnets  have  been 
needed  for  womenkind  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  but 
an  insane  asylum  would  have  been  demanded  for  the 
'unsexed  women,'  who  would  thus  reach  out  hands  for 
the  forbidden  fruit.  Now  we  have  a  political  Warwick, 
owning  and  editing  a  thriving  daily  in  the  popular  city  of 
Americus,  a  skilled  newspaper  woman,  a  member  of  your 
press  club,  whose  word  is  law  to  the  aspiring  democratic 
politician  in  her  bailiwick.  Journalism  has  now  become 
one  of  the  prime  factors  in  education,  equally  with  the 
schoolroom  and  the  pulpit.  The  three  are  abreast  in  the 
race  and  high  standards  should  prevail  in  them  all.  Those 
who  would  decry  the  press  as  an  educator,  and  prefer  to 
continue  in  oldtime  methods,  are  like  the  young  farming 
classes  in  Egypt,  who  still  use  a  crooked  beam  with  a 
sharpened  end  in  the  ground,  rather  than  a  steel  plow. 
The  crooked  stick  makes  a  mark  on  the  soil  with  an  ox 
or  a  woman  hitched  to  it,  but  nobody  is  silly  enough  to 
call  it  plowing.  The  pulpit  has  been  and  will  continue, 
and  deserves  to  continue,  a  great  educator,  but  it  is  a  mis- 
take to  say  it  is  the  only  one.  There  should  be  therefore 
the  most  perfect  harmony  between  the  pulpit,  the  press 
and  the  schoolroom,  the  three  great  educators  of  civiliza- 
tion for  uplifting  the  human  race.  There  should  be  the 
same  purpose  to  do  good — the  union  of  forces  for  the 
betterment  of  mankind — 

"  'Less    of   miscroscopic   scan 

Of  the  faults  of  fellow  man; 

More  of  brave,  uplifting  plan,' 
and  step  boldly  upon  the  high  plane  of  genuine  education 
and  true  patriotism. 

"Woman's  peculiar  aptitude  for  teaching  through  the 
press  became  apparent;  her  fitness  for  journalistic  instruc- 
tion has  now  appeared.  She  had  long  been  the  instruc- 
tress of  small  children  in  schools,  and  the  most  devoted 
and  capable  of  church  workers  known  to  the  world,  but  in 
this  new  advancement  of  the  press  along  lines  of  thought 
and  general  helpfulness,  women  have  certainly   found  a 

214 


sphere  that  they  fill  to  profit  and  satisfaction.  It  should 
surprise  no  one  that  intelligent  mothers,  wives,  sisters, 
daughters,  should  prove  capable  helpers  in  new  lines  of 
thought,  because  with  full  hearts  and  high  hopes  every 
fiber  in  their  innermost  being  thrills  with  the  progress  of 
their  own  loved  ones  in  wealth,  honor,  comfort  and  happi- 
ness. There  was  sympathy — earnest  congratulation — 
intelligent  appreciation  and  heartiest  encouragement  long 
before  woman  ventured  to  pen  a  line  in  legitimate  press 
work.  With  eager  outstretched  hands,  she  was  ready  to 
help  long  before  the  way  was  smoothed  for  her;  and  in 
due  time  the  modern  newspapers  felt  the  necessity  for  her 
formal  appearance  and  she  came  with  astonishing  celerity 
into  woman's  columns  and  woman's  departments,  and 
brought  her  wealth  of  experience  and  sympathy  into  ac- 
tive usefulness  and  general  benefit. 

"If  there  was  a  King  Solomon  at  this  time  who  could 
return  the  visit  of  a  modern  Queen  of  Sheba,  he  might 
truthfully  say  the  half  had  not  been  told." 

Referring  to  Queen  Victoria  as  a  writer,  Mrs.  Felton 
said: 

"Queen  Victoria's  reign  will  go  down  in  history  as  the 
best  known  to  the  English  nation;  because  she  filled  the 
sphere  of  a  sovereign  and  remained  a  worthy  wife  and 
mother.  Among  the  laurels  that  rest  on  her  brow  none 
are  more  valued  by  herself  than  her  own  writings.  Per- 
haps she  concluded  that  her  individual  efforts  in  literature 
were  more  to  be  valued. 

"Before  Queen  Victoria  ascended  the  English  throne,  at 
a  time  when  royal  profligacy  was  destroying  the  morals  of 
the  nation — a  woman  called  Hannah  More  developed 
talents  as  a  journalist,  which  have  never  been  disputed. 
Her  tracts  and  leaflets  were  so  powerful  as  an  agency 
for  good  that  she  is  granted  the  praise  of  holding  the 
British  nation  to  moorings  of  safety  in  morals  and  decent 
living.  Her  writings  were  peaceful  and  constitutional. 
She  inculcated  a  love  of  virtue,  a  love  of  home,  and  this 
good  woman's  pen,  counteracted  the  atheism  and  loose 
morals,  which  the  pulpit  failed  to  control.  Perhaps  she 
was  the  very  first  of  women  journalists  in  the  entire 
world. 

"When  Queen  Victoria  became  England's  sovereign  she 
found  a  woman  journalist  in  Harriet  Martineau,  who  then 
held  the  highest  place  in  English  history  as  a  woman 
writer.  She  was  illustrious  as  a  political  economist,  novel- 
ist, historian,  biographer  and  journalist.  What  a  quintet 
of  accomplishments  for  either  man  or  woman! 

"Hon.  Justin  McCarthy,  in  his  history  of  'Our  Own 
Times,'  says  'she  held  rank  as  the  only  English  woman 
who  achieved  distinct  and  great  success  as  a  writer  of 
articles  for  a  daily  newspaper,'  and  Hon.  Mr.  McCarthy  is 
a  good  witness.     She  was  frequently  reproached  with  be- 

215 


ing  unfeminine,  told  time  and  again  she  was  out  of  her 
sphere.  Nevertheless  Miss  Martineau's  literary  work  still 
holds  first  place  in  England. 

"Miss  Hannah  Adams  was,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  the 
first  woman  journalist  in  America.  She  was  born  near 
Boston,  a  hundred  years  before  I  was  born.  Her  father 
was  a  village  storekeeper.  His  shelves  held  everything 
usually  sold  by  anybody  in  a  country  town.  Mr.  Adams 
sold  books  along  with  shoes  and  molasses.  She  was  a 
tiny,  shrinking  girl,  but  an  omniverous  reader.  She  found 
something  as  valuable  as  a  gold  mine  to  her  on  those 
shelves.  The  bulk  of  her  education  came  through  those 
books,  while  she  helped  her  father. 

"She  became  so  efficient  in  Latin  and  Greek  that  she 
prepared  young  men  for  college.  An  embryo  minister  had 
made  a  collection  of  statistics,  concerning  different  reli- 
gious denominations,  their  beliefs,  numbers  and  so  forth . 
She  became  interested  in  the  figures  while  he  was  study- 
ing Latin  and  Greek  under  her  tuition  and  she  made  a 
full  and  exhaustive  record  on  the  same  subject.  He  went 
to  college,  and  as  there  was  no  college  to  open  its  doors 
to  a  woman,  she  toiled  over  the  manuscript.  A  rascally 
publisher  cheated  her  out  of  the  first  edition.  Friends 
came  to  her  rescue  and  secured  her  a  royalty,  which  paid 
her  $100  a  year  during  her  long  and  useful  life.  That 
amount  was  a  fortune  to  this  frugal  daughter  of  New 
England.  She  lived  to  be  seventy  years  old.  When  beau- 
tiful Mt.  Auburn  cemetery  was  ready  for  the  undertaker 
Hannah  Adams'  dust  was  removed  and  buried  in  that 
beautiful   resting    place    of   the    dead — the   first    occupant. 

"Northern  women  advanced  more  rapidly  into  journal- 
ism than  southerners.  The  latter  had  their  hands  full 
with  housekeeping  cares  and  the  direction  of  large  negro 
families.  When  northern  women  became  noted  in  politics 
the  southern  women  were  admonished  not  to  follow  the 
debasing  example.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  wrote  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin"  and  she  was  no  more  popular  in  the  south- 
land than  her  unwelcome  novel.  Northern  women  writers 
worshipped  her  genius  and  success.  The  southern  women 
were  afraid  to  see  their  own  names  in  print,  because  Mrs. 
Stowe  had  advanced  to  the  front  as  a  leader  of  thought 
and  public  opinion  in  discussing  the  abolition  of  human 
slavery.  The  road  to  literary  success  for  women  in  the 
South  has  been  set  back  nearly  fifty  years  by  reason  of 
the  sectional  hatred  and  antagonisms,  resulting  from  the 
bitter,  intolerant  feeling  which  existed  because  of  secession 
and  slavery. 

"It  has  been  thirty-five  years  since  the  war  closed,  and 
some  of  these  violent  objections  are  still  showing  their 
bad  taste  and  poor  manners  on  the  same  line  occasionally. 
While  they  are  a  little  monotonous,  slightly  tiresome, 
nobody  Is   crying  their  eyes  out  about  the  objectors   or 

216 


objections.  The  women  of  this  state  have  regular  con- 
ventions now  to  discuss  foreign  missions,  home  missions, 
temperance  and  like  subjects.  The  Federation  of  Woman's 
Clubs  actually  is  more  talked  about  than  the  adjournment 
of  the  national  congress. 

"Mrs,  Lowe's  re-election  at  Milwaukee  is  the  greatest 
political  victory  up  to  date  in  the  year  1900.  Common 
sense  concerning  the  race  question  won  its  way  easily — 
in  a  national  convention  of  women — when  the  question 
first  came  up  in  a  woman's  club  convention.  To  my 
certain  knowledge,  no  man  in  Georgia  has  ever  been 
placed  or  expected  to  be  placed  on  a  democratic  presi- 
dential ticket  since  the  war,  for  fear  the  race  question 
would  not  only  defeat  the  democratic  party,  but  provoke 
other  and  sterner  difficulties. 

"At  Milwaukee  the  good  sense  of  women,  north  as  well 
as  south,  prevailed  with  dignity  and  decision,  and  yet  our 
women  delegates  went  in  quiet,  well-dressed  style  to  the 
great  gathering  place,  without  whooping  and  yelling  at 
every  railroad  station,  and  when  they  got  ready  to  elect 
a  president  they  were  able  to  elect  a  genuine  southern 
woman,  who  did  not  strive  for  the  place,  as  their  first 
choice,  regardless  of  sectional  environment.  Don't  let  me 
forget  to  add  that  the  woman's  convention  matured  its 
plans  and  won  its  way  without  the  bribe  of  dollars,  or 
the  taste  of  whisky.  What  a  contrast  to  some  other  elec- 
tions I  could  name!  And  yet  they  tell  us  that  women  are 
out  of  their  sphere — in  public  affairs. 

"Before  the  war  our  southern  girls  were  not  expected  to 
do  anything  but  look  pretty,  dress  well  and  get  married; 
but  with  the  exigencies  of  war  to  encounter,  they  have 
entered  journalism  as  they  took  up  general  education  in 
other  matters,  with  a  view  to  advancement  and  profit. 

"The  names  of  some  well-known  ladies  in  Georgia  who 
have  managed  the  woman's  departments  in  our  largest 
newspapers,  their  surprising  zeal  in  magazine  and  review 
work,  their  strong  and  steady  support  of  things  true  and 
good,  have  put  to  shame  their  former-time  critics  and  foes. 

"The  attractiveness  of  a  literary  career  to  southern 
women  is  one  of  its  pleasant  features.  There  is  general 
eagerness  to  write.  Not  many  weeks  pass  over  my  head 
that  some  Georgia  girl  fails  to  write  me  asking  for  advice 
on  this  subject,  looking  to  a  future  career. 

"The  southern  writers  like  Mrs.  Burton  Harrison  and 
Amelie  Rives  have  made  money  and  fame  so  rapidly  that 
the  example  is  infectious. 

"The  idea  that  possessed  my  mind  in  the  thought  of 
meeting  the  ladies  of  this  convention  was  to  insist  upon 
emphasizing  in  their  writings  the  glories  of  this  wonderful 
southland — to  build  up  a  distinctive  literature  that  would 
be    in   strength   and   loveliness   as   dissimilar    to    French 

217 


frivolity  as  the  songs  of  Burns  are  to  the  music  of  a  Turk- 
ish harem. 

"One  of  the  finest  writers  of  modern  days  to  my  mind 
is  the  author  of  "Bonny  Briar  Bush,"  whose  every  word 
and  line  breathes  of  Scotland's  past  and  present.  The 
story  of  the  old  doctor  has  no  superior  in  any  book  as  a 
word  painting.  The  influence  of  the  country  is  stamped 
upon  it  from  beginning  to  end.  It  is  the  heart  talk  of  a 
Scot  brimful  of  Scottish  fore  and  traditional  history. 

"When  my  mind  goes  over  Georgia  history,  from  the 
landing  of  General  Oglethorpe  to  the  vandal  march  of 
Sherman,  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  country  on  the 
globe  that  furnishes  themes  of  more  surpassing  interest 
to  the  inspiration  of  genius.  We  have  had  great  names 
in  science,  in  politics,  in  religion,  in  various  lines  of 
fiction  and  poetry,  but  we  do  need  and  deserve  a  southern 
style  in  general  literature,  distinctive  and  attractive.  From 
Rabun  Gap  to  Tybee  light  this  commonwealth  is  alive 
with  inspiration  for  the  born  writer  of  history,  prose  or 
fiction. 

"While  my  own  feet  are  going  down  the  sunset  slope 
of  life,  I  can  still  discover  the  daydawn  of  the  coming 
great  writers  in  our  southland,  who  will  be  true  to  tra- 
dition. 

"It  would  be  disastrous  to  copy  after  anything  else  amid 
such  a  wealth  of  themes  and  subjects  made  ready  to  your 
hand.  Above  all  would  I  deplore  the  adoption  of  the 
broad  Frenchy  style,  the  expression  of  thoughts,  linked 
to  suggestion,  neither  ennobling  nor  clean  in  their  ten- 
dency. By  the  purity  of  the  homes  of  our  ancestors  I 
beg  that  our  literary  women  preserve  us  from  the  de- 
moralizing  tendency   of  a  corrupt  literature." 

In  closing  her  address,  Mrs.  Felton  feelingly  repeated 
the   following  lines: 

"  'What  this  troubled  old  world  needs, 
Is  less   of  quibbling   over  creeds, 
Fewer   words   and   better   deeds. 

"  'Less   of  wrangling  over  text, 
Less  of  creed  and  code  perplexed. 
More  of  charity  unvexed. 

"  'Less  of  shouting:    "I  alone 
Have  the  right  to  hurl  the   stone," 
More  of  heart  that  will   condone. 

"  'Less  of  dogma,  less  pretense, 
More   belief   that   providence 
Will  sanctify  good   common   sense. 

"  'Just  to  be  good  and  to  do  good, 
Simple,  plain,  for  Him  who  wiDuld, 
A  creed,  that  may  be  understood.' " 

218 


PREFACE. 


I  never  shall  forget  the  sadness  that  filled  my  part  of 
the  country,  when  it  was  flashed  over  the  wires,  that  Gen- 
eral Lee  was  dead.  We  understood  that  he  was  not  an 
old  man,  was  in  the  matured  manhood  of  a  great  and  noble 
life.  His  example  and  counsel  were  expected  to  help  the 
South  through  great  and  pressing  dangers. 

But  the  news  came  with  a  sudden  shock.  "We  heard  that 
his  noble  frame  had  been  racked  with  rheumatism,  con- 
tracted in  army  service;  and  he  was  already  gone,  before 
we  understood  he  had  been  a  sufferer  and  was  in  extremis 
in  his  Virginia  home. 

The  citizens  of  Cartersville  moved  as  if  by  automatic 
force  towards  the  court  house  to  talk  it  over. 

They  were  so  bereaved  that  they  were  heart-sick  with 
grief. 

My  deceased  husband  was  the  sneaker  of  the  occasion. 
a.s  often  happened  when  he  was  in  the  prime  of  manhood. 
Ttiose  wbo  beard  that  imnrnmtu  n^^™^  never  foreot  it. 
T^pv  rPTr,emb°rad  it  with  o-i-vi  ^po^+c-  <?<->  inno-  ^q  tnev 
lived.  "Rv  nreent  reouest.  Dr.  "Felton  was  willing  to  take 
OJenera.1  Lee's  nam*3  and  memnrv  p«  a  text  and  erivfi  our 
citizens   another   discourse   on   the  following  Sunday. 

I  have  a  sinele  conv  left,  after  a  Innse  of  forty-five  years. 
To  preserve  it  for  those  wbo  lovpd  bim  and  who  survive 
bim.  T  decided  to  reprint  the  sermon.  alon°-  with  mv  own 
address — delivered  a  few  weeks  a?o  on  a  Memorial  Dav, 
in  the  nresence  of  a  larere  audience — ^nd  whicft  T  nrint  for 
the  same  reason,  namely,  to  gratfy  those  who  will  survive 
me. 

One  has  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  other  in  composi- 
tion, in  facts,  or  phraseology,  but  both  were  the  outcome 
of  an  enthusiastic  admiration  for  the  greatest  General 
of  the  Confederate  times — the  General  who  will  go  down 
in  history  along  with  General  Washington,  and  a  greater 
name  in  morals  and  manners  than  Caesar  or  the  first 
Napoleon.  To  be  really  great  there  must  be  goodness  as 
well  as  greatness  of  intellect  or  genius. 

General  Lee  was  good  as  well  as  great,  and  I  trust  my 
descendants  will  never  forget  that  their  grandparents 
were  always  hoping  that  they  might  have  goodness  if 
greatness  was  denied  them. 

MRS.  W.  H.  FELTON. 

May  14,  1915. 

219 


SERMON     DELIVERED    BY    REV.    DR.    W.    H.    FELTON 
IN    CARTERSVILLE,    GA. 
Sunday,  Oct.   17,  1870  on 


Life  and  Character  of  General   Robert  E.   Lee. 
Text. — And    the   King    said   unto   his    servants,    "Know   ye 
not  that  there  is  a  Prince  and  a  great  man  fallen  this 
day  in   Israel." — II  Samuel,  3-38. 

These  are  the  words  of  eulogy  applied  by  King  David 
to  Abner,  the  military  chieftain  of  the  house  of  King  Saul. 
Abner  after  exhausting  all  his  resources,  and  finding  that 
it  was  useless  to  prosecute  the  war  any  longer  against 
David,  determined  to  surrender  all  his  forces.  The  terms 
of  capitulation  had  been  agreed  upon — an  interview  be- 
tween the  rival  captains  had  taken  place.  David  at  this 
interview  extended  to  Abner  and  his  body  guard  the  hos- 
pitalities and  courtesies  which  were  due  to  a  brave  and 
generous  enemy,  and  finally  dismissed  him  with  every 
mark  of  respect  and  esteem.  But  Abner  had  not  pro- 
ceeded far  on  his  return  home  before  he  was  arrested  by 
the  messengers  of  the  envious  and  malignant  Joab.  He 
is  carried  back  to  Hebron,  and  Joab,  while  conversing  with 
him  under  the  guise  of  friendship,  stabbed  him  so  that 
he   died. 

David,  when  he  hears  of  his  death,  drapes  his  household 
in  mourning,  and  himself  follows  the  bier  to  the  grave, 
weeping  like  a  child;  and  all  the  people  wept  at  the  grave 
of  Abner.  After  the  interment,  when  the  King's  servants 
insisted  that  he  should  "eat  meat,"  he  steadily  refused 
"'till  the  sun  be  down,"  and  said  to  them  "Know  ye  not 
that  there  is  a  great  man  fallen  this  day  in   Israel?' 

General  Robert  E.  Lee  was  a  Christian — a  disciple  of 
Christ — a  recognized  member  of  His  church — a  communi- 
cant at  its  altars,  and  it  is  fitting  that  the  precious  truths 
of  the  Gospel  should  be  associated  with  his  departure; 
that  its  promises  should  comfort  us  in  our  loss,  and 
brighten  the  path  that  leads  to  the  "inheritance  of  the 
saints,"  which  he  has  obtained. 

It  is  a  sublime  thought!  that  such  a  man  is  at  rest!  It 
is  a  sublimer  thought  that  such  a  character  is  indestruc- 
tible and  undying! 

That  character  was  the  result  of  long  continued  indus- 
try, and  unwavering  adherence  to  principle — principle 
which  had  but  one  acknowledged  standard,  and  that  the 
high  standard  of  Christian  faith  and  morals.  He  was  the 
architect  of  that  character,  before  which  men  pause  to- 
day in  loving  reverence.  And  it  is  consolatory  to  remem- 
ber that  while  the  intellect  and  the  heart  which  reared 
this  personal  structure — colossal  in  its  outlines,  and  sym- 
metrical  in   all   its   parts — is   removed   from   among   men, 

220 


yet  the  structure  itself  remains,  and  shall  fill  the  whole 
earth  with  gratitude  for  its  possession. 

When  an  ordinary  man  dies,  his  immediate  relatives 
mourn  for  him — his  own  home  is  desolated,  and  a  few 
hearts  are  lighted.  But  he  is  a  "great  man,"  whose  death 
clothes  a  nation  in  mourning,  and  carries  sorrow  to  every 
manly  heart  in  the  civilized  world. 

The  man  of  exalted  birth  and  high  official  or  social  posi- 
tion may  command  at  his  death  a  funeral  cortege,  imposing 
and  brilliant  in  its  arrangements,  but  how  seldom  are  such 
funeral  processions  sanctified  by  tears?  Usually  they  are 
gilded  pageants,  cold  mockeries  of  mortality,  unadorned 
with  a  sigh — in  which  tender  love  has  no  place — the  heart 
no  sympathy. 

Who  imagines  that  Prussia  wept  over  the  splendid  sar- 
cophagus of  Frederick  II.  falsely  called  the  Great?  It  is 
true  he  startled  all  Europe  by  the  boldness  of  his  designs, 
and  the  rapidity  with  which  he  executed  them.  It  is  true 
he  wrested  Silesia  and  other  provinces  from  their  legiti- 
mate crowns,  and  transferred  them  to  his  hereditary  state, 
Brandenburg.  It  is  also  true,  that  he  devoted  himself  to 
the  material  prosperity  of  his  subjects,  but  that  prosperity 
was  encouraged  and  fostered  that  it  might  be  wasted  in 
wars,  having  for  their  only  object  the  aggrandizement  of 
himself.  He  desired  to  make  Prussia  wealthy,  that  his 
coffers  might  be  enriched.  He  sought  the  renown  of  Prus- 
sia, that  Frederick  might  be  esteemed  the  most  successful 
chieftain  of  his  age.  He  was  a  professional  soldier,  and 
fond  of  carnage.  Every  emotion  of  his  soul  was  a  trained 
and  disciplined  servant  to  his  ambition.  Every  domestic 
virtue  and  social  affection  was  either  crushed  in  its  birth, 
or  subsidized  to  his  personal  interest. 

He  was  successful,  but  who  can  believe  that  tears  were 
shed  over  the  friend  and  patron  of  Voltaire?  Did  human 
nature  bring  tears  for  him  who  sneered  at  all  its  finer  sensi- 
bilities? Did  wives  weep  for  him  who  had  never  recognized 
his  own  amiable  and  true-hearted  wife?  Did  soldiers  weep 
over  him  whose  severity  of  discipline — whose  exacting 
cruelties  on  the  drill — whose  various  oppressions  made 
their  lives  a  constant  martyrdom,  and  drove  hundreds  to 
suicide,  simply,  that  in  a  "charge  on  full  gallop,  one 
horse's  head  should  not  be  a  foot  beyond  another,  and  that 
the  line  should  be  so  exactly  straight  Euclid,  himself, 
could  not  detect  an  error?" 

Who  dreams  that  Marlborough,  also  falsely  called  the 
Great,  with  his  brilliant  victories  and  startling  villanies, 
moved  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen  at  his  demise?  His 
courage,  his  abilities,  his  noble  and  winning  manners,  the 
splendid  success  which  had  attended  him  on  every  occa- 
sion in  which  he  commanded,  made  him  a  favorite  with 
his  brethren  in  arms.  But  he  unblushingly  sacrificed  every 
principle  for  gold — he   betrayed  every  trust  for  gold — he 

221 


compromised  every  sovereign  to  whom  he  owed  allegiance, 
for  gold.  His  deception,  his  hypocrisy,  and  his  master- 
pieces of  statecraft,  are  said  to  have  been  such  "as  Borgia 
would  have  envied,  and  such  as  Machiavel  would  have 
extolled  to  the  skies."  When  he  died,  a  master  of  the 
"art  of  war"  died,  but  no  man  or  government  lost  a  friend. 
We  cannot  conceive  how  love,  which  finds  expression  in 
tears,  could  have  manifested  itself  in  the  multitude  which 
some  years  ago  followed  the  remains  of  Napoleon  I,  also 
falsely  called  the  Great,  from  the  point  of  landing  in 
France,  to  the  splendid  mausoleum  prepared  for  their  re- 
ception. It  it  true,  nave,  choir,  and  transept  of  Notre 
Dame  were  in  a  blaze  with  innumerable  waxlights — it  is 
true,  a  gorgeous  coffin,  resting  on  a  magnificent  funeral 
car,  drawn  by  horses  appropriately  draped,  was  followed 
by  thousands  in  glittering  uniform  and  badges  of  honor, 
amid  the  booming  of  distant  minute  guns,  and  rurrounded 
by  the  battle-scarred  eagles  of  his  Italian  campaign — but, 

"O,  shade  of  the  mighty,  where  now  are  thy  legions 

That  rushed  but  to  conquer,  when  thou  led'st  them  on? 
Alas-  they  have  perished  in  far  hilly  regions, 

And  all  save  the  fame  of  their  triumph  is  gone. 
The  trumpet  may  sound,  and  the  loud  cannon  rattle 

They  heed  not,  they  are  free  from  all  pain, 
They  sleep  their  last  sleep,  they  have  fought  their  last 
battle, 

No  sound  can  awake  them  to  glory  again!" 

Who  can  conceive  that  ambition  like  his — which  depop- 
ulated and  impoverished — which  wasted  and  scourged — 
that  such  ambition,  as  it  stands  out  in  history,  "wrapped 
in  the  solitude  of  its  own  originality,"  could  command  at 
its  grave  the  "offering  of  a  heart?" 

To-day  an  entire  people  are  in  tears.  The  strong  man 
weeps  because  he  feels  that  he  has  lost  a  friend.  The 
Woman  brings  her  tribute  of  the  heart,  because  she  knows 
that  the  genius,  courage,  and  constancy,  which  stood  be- 
tween her  and  ruined  innocence,  has  gone  to  the  grave. 
Children  weep  because  General  Lee,  whom  they  loved  as 
a  father,  is  dead;  as  Southern  children,  they  are  orphans, 
indeed.  It  is  sad  when  a  child  is  deprived  of  its  natural 
protection — the  guardian  of  its  rights — the  watchful  sen- 
tinel upon  its  dark  and  dangerous  future — one  who  never 
sleeps  nor  slumbers  when  its  interests  are  involved.  Oh! 
there  are  tears  in  orphanage  which  may  well  "refuse  to 
be  comforted." 

To-day  the  children  of  the  State  are  in  orphanage. — 
Maxima  orbitas  reipublicae — "the  great  orphanage  of  the 
commonwealth."  The  State  mourns  its  benefactor — the 
faithful  guardian  of  its  rights— the  watchman  on  its 
towers.     Safe   in    counsel — wise    in    command — fearless    in 

222 


action — humble  in  the  hour  of  victory — brave  in  defeat — 
counting  not  his  life  dear  unto  himself,  so  that  he  might 
bring  happiness  and  security  to  his  countrymen. 

We  propose  to  inquire:  What  Constitute  a  Great  Man? 
David  said  Abner  was  a  great  man.  We  assert  that  Gen- 
eral Lee  was  a  great  man.  Are  we  correct?  This  word 
"great"  is  frequently  upon  our  lips.  He  may  be  great 
in  our  estimation,  but  is  he  truly  great?  He  may  excel 
in  some  intellectual,  moral  or  business  pursuit,  but  is  the 
whole  man  fitly  joined  together?  Statesmen  are  not  al- 
ways great  men.  Successful  warriors  are  not  necessarily 
great,  as  men.  Even  a  good  man  may  not  be  entitled  to 
the  appellation  of  great — for  he  may  be  illiterate,  obscure, 
"loved  and  prized  by  God  alone." 

What,  then,  constitutes  a  great  man?  First,  negatively 
—It  does  not  consist  in  large  earthly  possessions — in  ma- 
terial  resources — nor  in   official   position! 

These  are  the  elements  of  power,  but  not  the  constitu- 
ents of  greatness.  They  are  the  externals  of  fortune,  not 
necessarily  the  accompaniments  of  true  nobility. — They 
may  co-exist  with  greatness,  but  they  hang  as  loose  robes 
around  a  great  man.  They  are  the  outer  garments — if 
you  please,  the  toga  virilis — "Roman  gown  of  manhood"; 
but  not  the  manhood  itself.  They  are  the  paint — the 
stucco — -the  filagree-work  of  the  edifice,  but  not  the  build- 
ing. Time  may  deface  them — misfortune  may  destroy 
them —  but  their  departure  only  reveals  the  solidity  of  the 
masonry  within. 

At  the  outset  of  the  war,  General  Lee  had  some  of  these 
externals  of  fortune — wealth — honorable  connections — 
some  official  position,  and  the  confidence  of  his  associates. 
His  mind  was  cultivated.  He  was  master  of  his  profes- 
sion. The  industry  that  had  graduated  him  second  in  an 
unusually  brilliant  class  at  West  Point,  had  also  made  him 
the  most  accomplished  engineer  in  the  "old  army."  He 
had  some  professional  fame.  Vera  Cruz  had  fallen,  by 
his  professional  skill.  Cerro  Gordo,  Chepultepec,  and  Con- 
treras  were  carried,  as  much  by  his  professional  learning 
as  by  the  courage  of  the  troops,  for  it  was  his  learning 
and  ability  whicb  directed  the  operations  of  those  days, 
and  brought  about  their  successful  results.  All  these 
things   had    given    him    some    advantages — some    prestige. 

During  "our  war,"  he  held  high  official  position.  Many 
of  the  externals  of  fortune  seemed  to  hang  around  the 
loved  old  chieftain,  but  they  were  only  chaplets  and  robes 
thrown  over  the  statue  of  Hercules.  When  reverses  had 
swept  them  all  away — when  his  little  wealth  was  all  gone 
— when  he  was  stripped  of  position,  and  despoiled  of 
power,  it  was  then  the  solid  and  elegant  structure  of  his 
character  was  revealed.  To  be  stripped  of  these  things 
is  what  the  world  call  ruin — what  the  world  calls  defeat 

223 


— but  this  seeming  ruin  and  defeat  is  the  opportunity  of 
true  greatness. 

Never  did  General  Lee  seem  greater  than  when  on  the 
12th  of  April,  1865 — after  the  surrender,  which  had  been 
agreed  upon  two  days  before — when  the  seventy-five  hun- 
dred men  who  still  remained  with  him,  had  stacked  their 
arms,  and  the  ranks  were  for  the  first  time  broken  in  the 
presence  of  the  enemy,  there,  surrounded  by  all  these 
evidences  of  defeat — there,  when  the  veterans  of  a  hundred 
battle-fields  are  discharged  from  the  control  of  their  com- 
manding officer — there,  in  full  view  of  the  stacked  muskets 
which  they  had  borne  so  gallantly  at  Manassas,  Fredericks- 
burg, Cnancellorsville,  Richmond,  Gettysburg,  every- 
where— there,  in  full  view  of  their  bullet-torn  flags,  now 
furled  and  in  the  possession  of  others — there,  with  all 
the  memories  of  the  past,  and  all  the  fears  for  the  future 
— these  brave  men  are  moved  by  but  one  impulse,  and 
that  was  to  grasp  the  hand  of  their  beloved  old  chieftain, 
to  shake  it  with  all  the  fervor  of  love,  while  tears  are 
streaming  from  the  eyes  that  had  never  blinked  in  tfie 
storm  of  battle.  They  weep — not  for  themselves,  but  be- 
cause they  knew  his  "great  soul"  was  pained.  Their  first 
and  only  thought  in  that  supreme  moment,  was  to  minister 
consolation  to  him  "whom  they  loved."  Ah!  it  was  Cato 
in  ruins,  receiving  the  tearful  benedictions  of  all  the  Athe- 
nians. There  he  stands,  deprived  of  his  rank — a  prisoner 
of  war  on  parole,  his  hopes  and  labors  all  blasted,  yet 
never  was  he  so  loved  and  honored — never  was  he  so  ap- 
preciated. He  turned  to  the  soldiers  who  gathered  around 
him  and  said,  "Men,  we  have  fought  through  the  war 
together,  and  I  have  done  the  best  I  could  for  you."  With 
this  noble  consciousness  of  rectituae — a  consciousness 
which  was  responded  to  by  every  young  Southerner  who 
had  followed  his  flag,  he  mounted  his  horse,  and  in  com- 
pany with  a  few  members  of  his  staff,  he  rode  back  to 
Richmond.  Blackened  walls  and  smoking  embers  are 
around  him;  the  streets  are  thronged  with  strangers;  sol- 
diers in  Federal  uniforms  crowd  the  pavements;  no  famil- 
iar face  is  seen.  Presently  he  is  recognized — the  cry  is 
raised,  "Lee!  Lee!"  Instantly  friend  and  foe  uncover, 
and  start  after  the  retiring  Hero  with  shouts  of  love  and 
applause.  Soon  he  enters  his  humble  house,  and  forever 
into  the  seclusion  of  private  life.  The  smoke  of  battle  is 
now  dispersed,  and  the  eye  can  take  in  the  magnitude 
of  the  man — for  the  sunbeams  are  playing  upon  his  brow, 
and  every  cloud  that  now  floats  over  him  only  deepens  the 
golden  light  that  bathes  his  character. 

Enemies  investigate  his  character.  Records  are  searched 
— prisoners  are  interrogated  on  oath.  His  companions  in 
arms  are  cross-examined.  Every  device  is  employed  to 
find  something  condemnatory  of  his  official  acts,  and  yet 

224 


the  verdict  of  his  prosecutors  is,  "We  find  no  fault  in  this 
man." 

So  then  we  are  taught  improperly  that  position  consti- 
tutes greatness,  and  that  wordly  success  is  a  test  of  merit. 
Under  this  teaching  men  frequently  are  induced  to  sur- 
render all  nobility  of  soul  to  acquire  position,  and  will 
sacrifice  all  the  elements  of  greatness  to  command  suc- 
cess. 

General  Lee  did  not  seek  the  chief  command  of  the  army 
of  Virginia.  He  seemed  to  drift  with  the  current  of  events, 
and  yet  his  intellect  and  his  rigid  discharge  of  duty  were, 
all  unconsciously  to  himself,  controlling  and  shaping  the 
current  of  events.  When  at  Savannah,  or  in  Northern 
Virginia,  commanding  a  handful  of  men — while  the  South- 
ern armies  were  gathering  around  Richmond — and  in 
Tennessee  under  other  leaders,  there  were  no  murmurs — 
no  restless  repinings.  But  like  Fabius  Maximus  who, 
under  the  charge  of  inactivity  was  superceded  by  another, 
and  went  into  a  subordinate  position,  he  said  "This  only 
affords  me  a  more  splendid  opportunity  of  showing  my 
zeal  for  the  Republic."  When  he  received  the  chief  com- 
mand of  the  army  of  Virginia,  he  seemed  to  fill  a  niche 
which  nature  had  prepared  for  him.  His  genius,  his  in- 
tellect and  moral  qualifications,  fitted  the  place.  There 
was  no  discrepancy  between  his  capacity  and  his  duty. 
His  resources  were  always  equal  to  the  demands  made 
upon  them.  He  adorned  the  office — the  office  revealed  the 
man.  He  was  to  his  office  as  an  "apple  of  gold  set  in  a 
picture  of  silver.'  ' 

Who  is  a  "great  man?"  One  who,  with  high  intellectual 
qualifications,  fine  moral  perceptions,  and  untiring  indus- 
try, devotes  all  his  mental  and  moral  endowment  to  the 
happiness  of  others.  Selfishness  makes  no  part  of  true 
greatness.  Labor  and  exertion  for  selfish  ends  and  pur- 
poses, dissolves  and  annuls  a  man's  claim  to  greatness. 
He  lives  not  unto  himself.  Living  or  dying,  he  belongs 
unto  others.  As  the  circle  enlarges,  and  the  number  of 
those  he  benefits  is  multiplied,  in  that  proportion  he  is 
great.  When  the  recipients  of  bis  intellectual  and  moral 
beneficence  embrace  the  citizens  of  a  State,  we  have  that 
highest  grade  of  human  greatness  a  "national  benefactor." 

General  Lee  lived  not  for  himself.  He  never  placed  per- 
sonal considerations  in  competition  with  the  "public 
good."  He  was  the  servant  of  all,  and  thus  he  reached  the 
Scriptural  standard  of  greatness.  "Ye  know  that  the 
princes  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  dominion  over  them  and 
they  that  are  great  exercise  authority  upon  them. — But 
it  shall  not  be  so  among  you;  but  whosoever  would  be  great 
among  you,  let  him  be  your  minister.  And  whosoever  will 
be  chief  among  von  let  him  be  your  servant."  That  is: 
Among  the  Gentiles,  dominion  and  authority  are  the  signs 
of  greatness,  but  among  Christians  he  is  to  be  recognized 


as  chief  who  devotes  all  his  powers  to  the  general  hap- 
piness— forgets  self-interest  in  promoting  the  interest  of 
others.  Is  willing  to  be  poor,  that  others  may  be  rich — 
is  willing  to  suffer  that  others  may  rejoice — consents  to 
risk  his  life,  and  even  to  die,  that  others  may  live.  The 
highest  praise  the  enemies  of  the  Blessed  Savior  ever 
gave  him  was  the  derisive  taunt,  "He  saved  others,  him- 
self he  cannot  save."  The  grandest  words  of  patriotism 
that  ever  fell  from  human  lips  were  Paul's:  "For  I  could 
wish  that  myself  were  accursed  from  Christ  for  my 
brethren,  my  kinsman  according  to  the  flesh,  who  are 
Israelites." 

It  is  said  of  Caius  Gracchus,  that  he  boasted  of  carrying 
casks  full  of  wine  in  the  provinces,  and  bringing  them 
back  empty,  while  others  brought  theirs  back  full  of  gold. 
Like  him,  General  Lee  carried  a  full  purse  into  the  struggle 
for  Southern  independence,  and  brought  it  out  empty.  He 
could  have  amassed  millions  for  his  private  estate;  he  could 
have  commanded  every  bale  of  cotton  in  the  South;  he 
could  have  found  an  outlet  through  every  blockaded  port 
on  our  coast — but  while  his  countrymen  suffered,  it  is  said 
that  a  "simple  slice  of  ham  and  cracker"  was  the  extent 
of  his  table  luxuries;  and  at  the  close  of  the  war  he  was 
dependent  upon  his  own  exertions  for  his  daily  bread.  Self 
was  forgetten. 

He  was  opposed  to  secession,  but  his  individual  opinions 
were  not  permitted  to  influence  his  duty  to  others.  He 
was  the  son  of  Virginia,  therefore  the  servant  of  Vir- 
ginians. At  the  command  of  his  old  mother,  he  un- 
sheathed his  sword,  and  never  did  he  surrender  it  until  the 
Virginia  of  his  fathers  had  ceased  to  exist.  As  long  as 
she  had  power  to  issue  her  orders,  so  long,  with  sword 
in  hand,  was  he  ready  "through  rock  and  steel  to  smite." 
When  she  ceased  to  breathe,  and  her  arms  were  folded  in 
death,  he  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  die,  and  sleep  upon  her 
bosom. 

He  fought  simply  for  the  homes  of  his  countrymen — 
for  his  Penates.  His  nature  shrank  from  the  carnage  of 
battle.  He  found  no  "music,"  like  Charles  XII  of  Sweden, 
in  "whistling  bullets."  He  felt  no  sublimity  in  exploding 
shells,  in  the  charge  of  cavalry,  or  in  the  shouts  of  cap- 
tains. He  knew  that  all  these  were' messengers  of  death 
— of  wounds — of  desolation.  His  finely-wrought  soul  de- 
lighted in  none  of  these  things,  for  his  was 
"The  kind  and  gentle  heart 
That  feels  another's  woe." 

He  fought  for  no  obiects  of  ambition — no  crown — no 
point  of  honor — no  acquisition  of  territory — no  traditional 
feud — no  sectional  hate.  He  carried  into  battle  neither 
the  red  rose  of  Lancaster,  nor  the  white  rose  of  York. 
But  with  a  "single  eye"  to  defense,  his  motives  were  all 
summed  up  in  the  expression,   "My  people  must  be  pro- 

226 


tected."  When  army  after  army  which  the  Federal  author- 
ities sent  against  him,  had  gone  down  under  his  guns  and 
his  strategy  like  frost-work — when  commander  after  com- 
mander had  been  driven  back  across  the  Potomac,  and 
into  retirement — when  new  levies  of  a  half  million  of  men 
were  flocking  to  the  Federal  onset,  like  "eagles  to  the 
carcass,"  and  the  little  band  of  young  Southrons  were 
rallying  around  their  "old  Leader"  for  the  last  death- 
struggle,  it  is  said  some  foreign  officer  enquired  of  General 
Lee,  "How  long  do  you  suppose  the  work  of  death  will 
continue,  and  what  will  be  the  probable  results  of  the 
war?"  It  is  said  that  his  only  reply  was,  "Sir,  my  people 
must  be  protected."  And  we  verily  believe  that  his  people 
to-day  owe  their  tolerable  condition  not  so  much  to  the 
clemency  of  Northern  politicians  as  they  do  to  the  stern 
and  overwhelming  resistance  of  Robert  E.  Lee. 

In  an  earthquake  it  is  usually  the  first  wave  which 
rushes  over  the  city,  and  in  its  reflex  sweeps  everything 
lovely  and  beautiful  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  If  the  city 
can  escape  the  first  wave,  consequent  on  the  first  shock, 
then  the  monster  force  is  found  to  subside  gradually,  and 
finally  wastes  its  strength  in  harmless  oscillations.  So  if 
the  first  wave  of  Northern  vengeance,  consequent  on  the 
firing  upon  Fort  Sumter,  and  the  first  battle  of  Manassas, 
had  swept  unresisted  over  the  South,  it  is  probable  the 
"desolations  of  war"  would  have  been  realized  by  us  more 
than  they  were.  But  General  Lee  certainly  gave  the  coun- 
try time  for  reflection,  and  stayed  the  mad  waves  of  re- 
venge until  the  North  had  learned  to  respect  the  courage 
of  the  South.  The  State  which  produced  him,  and  the  sol- 
diers he  commanded,  may  be  hated,  but  can  never  be  des- 
pised. We  repeat,  that  he  consecrated  all  his  powers  to 
the  happiness  of  his  countrymen. 

But  this  regard  for  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest 
number  of  his  fellow  men  was  manifested  in  his  efforts  to 
mitigate  the  horrors  and  cruelties  of  war. 

The  savage  is  never  a  "great  man."  The  brave  man  is 
proverbial  for  his  generosity  and  his  chivalrous  bearing 
towards  the  helpless  and  unarmed.  He  will  lose  an  op- 
portunity for  success  rather  than  stain  his  reputation  for 
magnanimity.  His  place  in  history,  and  the  approval  of 
his  conscience,  is  more  valuable  to  him  than  the  applause 
of  the  multitude. 

Never  were  these  truisms  more  fully  illustrated  than 
they  were  by  General  Lee  in  his  temporary  invasion  of 
Pennsylvania.  It  was  thought  when  he  entered  that  State 
he  would  retaliate  for  the  many  outrages  which  the  enemy 
had  committed  upon  the  South.  That  he,  also,  would  an- 
nounce that  "war  is  cruelty."  and  proceed  to  apply  the 
torch.  That  in  answer  to  trie  demands  made  upon  him  by 
some  Southern  journals,  he  would  hoist  the  "black  flag," 
and  proceed  to  chase  women  and  children  from  their  burn- 

227 


ing  homes,  and  drive  them  houseless  and  penniless  re- 
fugees into  the  mountains  and  swamps  of  that  State.  But 
little  did  the  men  who  entertained  these  expectations 
know  of  the  grandeur  of  the  Confederate  Chieftain. 

As  soon  as  he  entered  that  State  he  issued  orders  for- 
bidding his  troops  from  taking  private  property,  unless 
paid  for  on  the  spot.  That  no  private  dwelling  was  to  be 
entered  without  special  authority.  Grain  fields  were 
guarded  by  troops  on  starving  horses.  Store  houses  and 
barns  were  surrounded  by  ragged  and  bare-footed  pickets 
to  shield  them  from  depredation.  A  few  Dutchmen  gather- 
ing up  their  mules  and  oxen  pretended  to  fly  before  the 
rebels,  but  the  vast  majority  of  the  citizens  remained  at 
home  along  the  line  of  Lee's  march,  and  the  infant  babe 
slept  as  sweetly  upon  its  mother's  breast  as  though  no 
invading  army  had  crossed  the  lines;  and  virgin  innocence 
reposed  as  safely  upon  its  nightly  couch  as  though  it  had 
been  resting  in  a  father's  arms.  There  were  no  smoking 
ruins  left  in  his  path — he  issued  no  orders  to  destroy,  and 
made  no  reports  like  the  following,  by  General  Sheridan: 
"I  have  destroyed  over  two  thousand  barns  filled  with 
wheat  and  hay  and  farming  implements;  over  seventy 
mills  filled  with  flour  and  wheat;  have  driven  in  front  of 
the  army  over  four  thousand  head  of  stock,  and  have 
killed  and  issued  to  the  troops  not  less  than  three 
thousand  head  of  sheep,  and  have  made  the  country  en- 
tirely untenable." 

A  writer  on  International  Law  says,  "A  belligerant 
prince,  who  should,  in  the  present  day,  without  necessity, 
ravage  an  enemy's  country  with  fire  and  sword,  and  render 
it  uninhabitable  in  order  to  make  it  serve  as  a  barrier 
against  the  advance  of  the  enemy,  would  justly  be  re- 
garded as  a  modern  Attila." 

After  he  fought  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  and  during  his 
retreat — though  that  retreat  was  conducted  in  perfect 
order  and  unmolested  by  the  enemy,  yet  there  were  no 
poor  old  Cassvilles  in  his  rear,  with  every  house  in  its 
incorporate  limits  reduced  to  ashes,  except  its  three 
churches — there  were  no  Cartersvilles,  with  every  house 
on  its  public  square  left  in  cinders,  and  its  Baptist  church 
destroyed — there  were  no  Mariettas — there  were  no 
Atlantas,  with  its  inhabitants  driven  into  exile,  and  their 
homes,  "palace  and  hovel,"  left  blackened  monuments  of 
barbarism  and  cowardice.  There  was  no  long  track  of 
embers  and  wrecks — no  flying  throngs  of  shrieking,  wail- 
ing women,  and  starving  children.  There  was  no  Colum- 
bia, with  its  churches — its  halls  of  learning — its  palaces  of 
justice — its  eighty  squares  of  buildings  all  wrapped  in 
flames — its  insulted  women — its  desecrated  graves — its 
sack,  in  which  intoxicated  soldiers  and  fire  did  the  "work 
of  hell"  from  dark  to  sunrise. 

22B 


Oh,  no!  There  were  none  of  these  things — General  Lee 
was  in  command  of  Southern  troops.  It  was  not  Count 
Von  Moltke,  or  the  Crown  Prince,  carrying  desolation  to 
the  harmless  peasantry  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine.  It  was  the 
Hero  who  had  achieved  greater  victories  than  Gravelotte, 
subjecting  "war"  to  the  high  standards  of  humanity  and 
Christian  mercy.  It  was  a  man  who  gave  no  unnecessary 
pain — inflicted  no  gratuitous  suffering — started  no  tears. 
He  was  a  Knight  tender  as  woman,  and  fearless  as  Bayard. 

Lastly:  Every  great  man  fears  God,  and  keeps  his  com- 
mandments. 

Human  greatness  is  estimated  by  its  works.  By  their 
deeds  will  posterity  judge  the  great  of  this  world.  Profes- 
sions of  friendship  for  the  human  *ace  will  only  be  es- 
teemed valid,  when  sustained  by  the  consecration  of  great 
intellectual  and  moral  powers  to  the  public  good. 

But  the  enemy  of  God  was  never  a  true  friend  to  man. 
He  who  violates  the  law  of  God,  and  "teaches  men  so," 
is  to  the  extent  of  his  ability,  at  war  with  the  public  good. 
For  the  highest  human  happiness  can  only  be  reached 
through  obedience  to  God.  Christianity  is  the  foundation 
of  our  civilization,  and  the  only  elevating  and  refining 
agency  of  our  society.  He  who  rejects  Christianity  un- 
dermines the  intelligence  and  the  virtue  of  the  human 
race  and  attempts  to  force  back  the  tide  of  civilization 
upon  the  sources  of  barbarism.  A  Christian  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  "great  man;"  he  may  not  have  the  power  to 
shape  and  mould  his  fellow-men;  he  may  not  have  the  tact 
to  command  the  world's  attention;  he  may  be  incapable  of 
great  thoughts  and  great  actions,  but  every  "great  man" 
is  a  good  man —  a  "God-fearing"  man — a  righteous  man. 
For  he  cannot  be  a  lover  of  men  unless  he  be  a  lover  of 
God  in   Christ  Jesus. 

As  we  have  stated,  General  Lee  was  a  Christian — a 
communicant  at  the  altars  of  a  Christian  Church— par- 
taker of  the  emblems  of  "Christ's  broken  body  and  shed 
blood" — a  man  of  prayer — a  man  of  faith — one  who  hung 
all  his  trophies,  all  his  spoils  "upon  the  Cross." 

We  can  never  forget  his  dispatches  announcing  to  the 
country  memorable  victories — victories  destined  to  live 
in  history  and  song  as  long  as  great  deeds  are  honored 
among  men.  They  were  in  spirit  but  a  repetition  of  the 
old  doxologies:  "Not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but 
unto  thy  name  give  glory."  "Unto  thee,  O  God,  do  we 
give  thanks;  unto  thee  do  we  give  thanks;  for  that  they 
name  is  near,  thy  wondrous  works  declare.  O  sing  unto 
the  Lord  a  new  song;  for  he  hath  done  marvellous  things; 
His  right  hand  and  His  holy  arm  hath  gotten  him  the  vic- 
tory." "The  Lord  hath  made  known  his  salvation.  And 
hath  redeemed  us  from  our  enemies."  It  is  probable  that 
General  Lee  did  not  believe  that  battle  was  a  decision  of 
the  "justice  of  God,"  or  that  the  results  of  war  determined 

229 


the  legal  equities  of  an  international  cause.  But  he  was 
deeply  religious— he  recognized  the  hand  of  God  in  every- 
thing— his  heart  was  the  trained  and  disciplined  respond- 
ent of  God's  mercies,  and  he  habitually  attributed  every 
success  to  the  "Father  of  Lights." 

When  he  parted  with  his  troops  at  Appomattox,  he  dis- 
missed them  with  these  manly  words:  "I  earnestly  pray 
that  a  merciful  God  will  extend  to  you  His  blessing  and 
protection."  It  was  a  father  commending  his  children  to 
the  God  who  had  watched  over  all  his  earthly  pilgrimage. 
It  was  Israel  in  his  last  hours,  reaching  out  his  hands  and 
laying  them  upon  the  heads  of  Ephraim  and  Manassah, 
saying,  "The  angel  which  redeemed  me  from  evil,  bless  the 
lads."  It  was  the  Apostle  committing  his  sons  "to  God, 
and  the  word  of  his  grace." — who  "kneeled  down  and 
prayed  with  them  all."  And  they  all  wept  sore,  "sorrowing 
most  of  all  for  the  words  which  he  spake,  that  they  should 
see  his  face  no  more." 

Grand  old  man!  Great  in  all  thy  actions,  but  greatest 
and  noblest  in  communion  and  fellowship  with  thy  God! 
Thou  wert  not  permitted  to  lead  thy  people  to  their 
coveted  inheritance,"  but  on  "Nebo's  lonely  mountain" 
God  handed  thee  gently  and  gloriously  to  thy  grave! 

Oh!  ye  coming  historian!  Write  it  upon  thy  future 
page,  that  the  desolated  South  has  produced  the  only 
Chieftain  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  who  by  his  acts  in 
war,  demonstrated  his  piety  to  God.  Havelock,  and  our 
own  Jackson,  were  subordinates.  Like  the  Phoenix,  which 
is  said  to  renew  itself  from  its  own  ashes,  so  these  South- 
ern States,  when  they  were  crumbling  into  ruins,  developed 
and  matured  the  sublimest  specimen  of  a  Christian  Soldier 
known  to  his  age. 

The  world  does  not  produce  many  "great  men"— only 
here  and  there,  along  the  track  of  time,  do  they  make 
their  appearance.  Heaven  bestows  its  ordinary  gifts  lav- 
ishly, but  its  extraordinary  endowments  are  given  spar- 
ingly. There  are  not  many  stars  of  the  first  magnitude 
— diamonds  are  scarce  among  the  sands  of  the  earth. 
These  "great  men"  seem  to  be  given  for  our  guidance. 
They  are  blazing  monuments,  by  which  the  multitude  may 
direct  their  aspirations  and  their  actions.  When  one 
begins  to  grow  dim  with  years,  God  raises  up  another, 
and  to-day  Robert  E.  Lee  is  Heaven's  latest  monument 
on  the  path  of  human  existence. 

Let  us  reach  out  as  far  as  practicable  towards  this  il- 
lustrious example.  Let  us,  like  him,  submit  quietly  to  the 
necessities  of  our  situation,  obey  the  laws,  and  by  indus- 
try, economy  and  enterprise,  restore  the  "waste  places" 
of  Georgia.  Above  all,  let  us  by  faith  in  Christ,  secure  the 
blessing  of  Almighty  God. 

230 


LIFE  AND  CHARACTER  OF  GENERAL  ROBERT  E.  LEE. 

An   Address   Delivered   at   Ashburn,    Georgia,   on    April   26, 

1915,    Upon    the    Invitation    of  the    United 

Daughters  of  The   Confederacy. 

By   Mrs.  W.  H.  Felton,  Cartersville,  Ga. 


Respected  Audience:  It  is  the  principal  token  of  civili- 
zation to  remember  with  respect,  and  memorialize  with 
accuracy  and  affection,  the  good  and  the  great,  who  have 
preceded  us,  in  the  journey  of  life. 

All  nations  of  the  earth,  save  benighted  Africa,  have 
numerous  memorials,  arches,  temples,  and  tablets,  for 
this  worthy  purpose.  Even  in  heathen  lands  beautiful 
monuments  remain,  erected  centuries  ago.  Inscriptions 
inside  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt,  prove  to  us  the  respect  that 
ancient    Egyptians    entertained   for    their    dead    Pharoahs. 

In  more  modern  times — there  are  monuments  of  various 
kinds,  built  of  purest  marble,  hardest  granite,  enduring 
bronze,  to  commemorate  the  victories  of  Great  Generals 
and  notable  Statesmen.  Our  National  Capitol  has  its  Hall 
of  Fame.  Among  the  great  of  America,  the  Common- 
wealth of  Illinois  has  placed  a  marble  statue  of  Miss 
Frances  Willard,  the  great  leader  of  the  Temperance 
Cause  in  the  United  States  and  the  World! 

All  over  our  country  there  are  monuments  being  con- 
stantly erected  to  memorialize  the  victorious  leaders  in 
our  Revolutionary  and  Civil  Wars. 

Georgia  has  made  a  legal  holiday  of  the  birthday  of 
General  Robert  E.  Lee.  The  United  States  Government 
had  previously  made  legal  holidays  of  the  birthdays  of 
General  George  Washington  and  President  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. On  those  legal  birthday  holidays  all  business  is  sus- 
pended. The  public  schools  give  holidays,  supposing  that 
teacher  and  pupils  will  occupy  the  time  in  discussing  the 
history  of  the  three  greatest  men  who  ever  lived  in  their 
respective  states.  Every  American  who  travels  in  foreign 
lands  is  pleased  to  know  that  General  Washington's  name 
commands  the  respect  of  the  residents  of  the  Old  World. 
"Like  a  thread  of  gold, 
His  life  has  wronght  good  a  thousand  fold!" 

Thus  it  is  in  the  South  with  the  name  of  General  Lee. 
He  was  a  truly  great  man,  and  also  a  great  soldier.  He 
was  a  good  citizen,  a  wise  father,  a  devoted  husband  and 
a  Christian  gentleman.  There  is  no  taint  of  greed  or  cor- 
ruption in  his  wonderful  career.  His  example  was  always 
good  in  camp  and  field,  in  the  lecture  room,  and  wherever 
he  was  placed  to  illustrate  his  State  and  Nation.  He  died 
as  he  lived,  a  great  and  noble  son  of  Virginia,  a  worthy 
son  of  worthy  sires.    He  prized  character  above  money. 

231 


His  former  foes  appreciate  him — for  his  courage  and  his 
virtues.  Before  the  smoke  of  battle  had  risen  from  the 
battlefields  around  Richmond,  the  finest  writers  in  Europe 
bore  testimony  to  their  high  regard  for  the  defeated  Gen- 
eral of  the  collapsed  Confederacy. 

As  the  years  roll  on  and  the  critics  see  clearer,  their 
admiration  increases.  The  better  we  in  the  South  become 
acquainted  with  General  Lee,  tbe  more  we  admire  his 
beautiful  loyalty  and  resplendent  patriotism.  If  he  ever 
made  a  military  mistake,  and  he  made  some  mistakes,  he 
was  able  to  rise  in  majesty  of  truth  and  justice  and  admit 
them.  There  is  no  greater  test  of  noble  character  than 
to  confess  a  fault.  General  Lee  was  true  to  others  and 
true  to  himself. 

Our  Confederate  experiences  were  sore  and  heavy  to- 
ward the  end.  It  was  a  tremendous  responsibilty  to  lead 
a  forlorn  hope  in  bloody  battles.  General  Lee  was  ap- 
prised, from  the  beginning,  that  our  chances  were  doubt- 
ful. No  Southern  General  had  such  clear  vision  as  to  the 
resources  of  the  Federal  Army  as  General  Lee.  He  had 
reached  such  prominence  in  the  U.  S.  Army  that  General 
Winfield  Scott  had  picked  him  for  the  Succeeding  Com- 
manding General. 

He  was  reared  as  a  soldier.  He  was  the  son  of  General 
Henry  Lee,  who  commanded  "Lee's  Legion"  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary War,  and  who  was  called  "Light-Horse  Harry 
Lee."  It  was  he  who  delivered  the  celebrated  eulogy  on 
General  Washington,  in  which  he  said:  "First  in  war; 
first  in  peace,  and  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen." 
He  served  in  Congress;  was  Governor  of  Virginia  from 
1792-95.  In  1814,  he  was  visiting  in  Baltimore  when  the 
house  was  attacked  and  General  Lee  defended  his  host 
and  family,  but  the  mob  was  victorious.  He  with  his  host 
and  others  were  carried  to  the  jail  for  safety.  The  mob 
broke  into  the  jail,  killed  some,  maimed  others,  among 
them  General  Henry  Lee,  He  never  recovered  from  those 
wounds.  He  sought  health  in  the  West  Indies.  Without 
improvement  he  tried  to  reach  home,  and  reached  our  own 
Cumberland  Island,  Ga.,  where  death  found  him.  He  died 
March  25,  1816,  nearly  one  hundred  years  ago.  His  great 
son,  Robert  Edward,  was  only  nine  years  of  age  when  his 
father  died.  He  was  born  at  the  family  (Lee)  homestead, 
named  Stratford,  which  Richard  Henry  Lee,  the  signer  of 
Independence,  inherited — he  who  wrote  that  famous  sen- 
tence, "That  these  Colonies  are,  and  of  right,  ought  to  be, 
free  and  Independent  States."  Those  of  you  who  will  ever 
take  a  boat-trip  down  the  James  River  can  have  Stratford 
pointed  out  to  you. 

Our  own  great  General  Robert  Lee  was  sixty-three  years 
of  age  when  he  died  suddenly  from  rheumatism,  con- 
tracted from  exposure  in  the  Confederate  war.    He  should 

232 


have  been  in  the  prime  of  his  life,  but  he  lived  only  five 
years  after  the  surrender  at  Appomattox. 

He  was  much  opposed  to  secession.  He  did  not  resign 
his  position  in  the  old  Army  until  Virginia  seceded  in 
May,  1861.  Georgia  seceded  in  January,  1861.  His  wife 
(Mrs.  Lee)  wrote  to  General  Scott,  that  "her  husband  had 
wept  tears  of  blood"  over  the  situation.  General  Lee 
wrote  a  letter  to  his  own  sister,  which  is  extant,  "I  am 
grieved  at  my  inability  to  see  you.  The  whole  South  is 
in  a  state  of  revolution,  into  which  Virginia  has  been 
drawn  after  a  long  struggle,  and  though  I  recognize  no 
necessity  for  this  state  of  things,  and  would  have  forborne 
and  pleaded  to  the  end  for  redress  of  grievances,  real  or 
supposed,  yet  I,  as  an  individual  had  to  make  choice, 
whether  I  would  act  for  or  against  the  people  of  my  native 
State.  With  all  my  devotion  to  the  Union,  and  my  loyalty 
as  an  American  citizen,  I  have  not  been  able  to  raise  my 
hand  against  my  relatives,  my  children  and  my  home. 
Save  in  defense  of  my  native  State,  I  shall  never  draw 
my  sword.  I  hope  my  poor  services  will  never  be  needed, 
I  know  you  will  blame  me,  but  you  must  think  of  me  as 
kindly  as  you  can,  and  believe  that  I  have  endeavored  to 
do  what  was  right." 

When  Richmond  became  the  Capitol  and  General  Lee 
volunteered  with  a  Virginia  regiment  he  had  a  small  po- 
sition. Do  not  forget,  he  was  going  up  head,  under  Gen- 
eral Scott's  good  will  as  fast  as  he  could  advance.  He 
had  liberal  army  pay  and  owned  Arlington,  with  other  for- 
tunes. Had  he  chosen  to  leave  Virginia,  honors  would 
have  been  heaped  upon  him.  His  magnificent  home  would 
have  been  saved  to  him.  He  knew,  as  before  said,  what 
the  South  was  rushing  into — unprepared.  Our  own  fiery 
Georgia  speakers  told  of  this  unpreparedness,  and  Gen- 
eral Lee  knew  the  chances  were  all  against  us.  The  whole 
civilized  world,  except  Brazil,  had  abandoned  the  system 
of  African  slavery.  It  had  "no  dignity"  in  any  powerful 
government.  Yet  General  Lee  saw  with  clear  vision,  with 
mammoth  losses  to  himself  at  the  very  beginning;  without 
his  regular  army  pay;  forced  to  abandon  Arlington  and 
take  his  large  family  of  sons  and  young  daughters  into  a 
rented  house;  he  made  these  heroic  sacrifices  for  his 
native  State — Virginia.  He  joined  the  Confederate  army 
as  a  Brigadier  General.  When  he  reached  Richmond, 
Governor  Letcher  conferred  upon  him  the  command  of  all 
Virginia  troops  with  title  of  Major-General.  A  great  mass- 
meeting  was  held  at  the  State  Capitol,  with  brass  bands, 
fervid  oratory  and  military  processions.  After  General 
Lee  had  been  formally  intrusted  with  the  Major-General- 
ship, he  rose  and  modestly  said:  "I  am  grateful  for  this 
confidence,  so  kindly  expressed  on  this,  to  me,  most 
solemn  occasion."     He  wished  there  had  been  a  better  one 

233 


selected  for  the  work,  but  he  would  do  his  best  and  await 
results. 

When  Congress  assembled  at  Richmond,  a  re-organiza- 
tion of  the  army  was  ordered  and  General  Lee  was  set 
down  as  a  Brigadier  General  for  the  second  time,  and 
placed  under  some  political  generals  who  had  been  active 
in  pushing  the  crisis  upon  the  country  and  who  wished 
to  win  fame  as  martial  heroes.  General  Wise  and  General 
Floyd  got  to  quarreling  in  West  Virginia  and  had  to  be 
separated.  Everything  went  wrong.  General  Garnett 
was  killed,  his  command  destroyed,  and  when  General  Lee 
was  ordered  to  the  command,  Pegram's  artillery  had  been 
sacrificed  and  everything  was  hopeless.  This  defeat  lost 
West  Virginia  to  the  Southern  Confederacy,  although  Gen- 
eral Lee  held  the  forces  intact  during  tbe  long,  dreadful 
winter  of  1861-62. 

As  a  quasi  rebuke,  he  was  removed  to  the  Coast  of 
Florida  and  Georgia,  and  held  that  inconsiderable  appoint- 
ment until  the  summer  of  1862.  He  had  no  attention  while 
the  battle  of  Manassas  was  fought  in  July,  1861,  but  there 
was  no  complaint,  no  personal  grievance  ever  exposed 
while  he  remained  comparatively  unnoticed  in  the  Army 
by  Confederate  authorities.  The  absence  of  all  resentment 
marks  one  of  the  finest  traits  in  the  character  of  General 
Lee. 

Not  until  the  Battle  of  Seven  Pines  in  June,  1862,  after 
General  Joe  Johnston  was  wounded  and  disabled,  did  the 
authorities  turn  to  the  consideration  of  the  fitness  and 
military  capacity  of  General  Lee.  They  did  not  seem  to 
appreciate  what  was  ready  to  tbeir  hand  until  that  time. 
General  Beauregard  had  gone  out  West  to  supervise  the 
Western  Army  under  command  of  General  Albert  Sidney 
Johnston.  This  was  another  case  of  glaring  oversight. 
General  Albert  S.  Johnston  had  been  soundly  abused  for 
inactivity,  etc.,  but  when  General  Beauregard  made  his 
report  he  said  he  was  astounded  that  there  were  only  a 
little  over  20,000  men.  The  Border  States  sent  a  number 
of  enthusiastic  Confederate  troopers,  but  the  masses  of 
the  people  stayed  at  home  and  saved  their  stuff! 

When  General  Lee  was  placed  in  command  of  the  army 
of  northern  Virginia  he  had  time  to  find  out  that  he  must 
have  men  who  were  trained  in  military  affairs.  Political 
generals,  as  a  rule,  had  been  a  failure.  Ever  afterwards  he 
kept  Stonewall  Jackson  within  reach.  General  A.  P.  Hill 
he  knew  to  be  sterling  metal  and  he  was  kept  in  close 
touch.  General  Longstreet,  the  best  trained  soldier  that 
Georgia  ever  raised,  was  never  far  away,  but  once,  when 
he  was  dispatched  with  an  army  corps  to  assist  General 
Bragg  at  the  battle  of  Chickamauga.  General  D.  H.  Hill 
was  a  trained  soldier,  reliable  to  the  core,  only  when  he 
got  angry  or  petulant  with  orders  that  he   did  not  like, 

234 


maybe  did  not  understand.  Major-General  Ewell  was  also 
a  great  soldier. 

I  read  some  time  ago  of  the  seven  days'  battles  that 
came  in  swift  succession  after  the  retirement  of  General 
Joe  Johnston  at  Seven  Pines.  General  Lee  had  swiftly 
organized  his  army  under  these  trusted  and  trained  men. 
General  Jackson  had  been  operating  in  the  valley —  and 
it  was  a  season  of  heavy  rains  and  flooded  streams.  Gen- 
eral Lee  summoned  him  to  the  defense  of  Richmond. 
McClellan  was  approaching  with  a  large,  well-equipped 
army,  pressing  on  in  great  force.  A  battle  was  set  for 
the  27th  of  June,  near  Mechanicsville,  and  Jackson  was 
anxiously  expected.  The  last  word  was  that  he  had  to 
repair  Beaver  creek  bridge  to  get  his  guns  across.  Gen- 
eral Lee  was  in  Hogan's  house,  with  A.  P.  Hill  and  Long- 
street  near  at  hand  and  waiting.  The  lesser  officers  were 
sitting  on  steps  of  Hogan's  house,  and  piazzas.  General 
Lee  was  alone  in  a  bed  room,  anxiously  waiting  for  Jack- 
son. The  word  that  went  around  was,  "Can  Jackson  reach 
us?"  Those  who  saw  General  Lee's  face  said  he  was  pale, 
but  composed. 

At  length  a  courier  came  in  sight,  waving  a  piece  of 
paper,  his  horse  covered  with  sweat  and  foam.  General 
Lee  caught  the  paper  from  his  hand,  read  the  lines, 
mounted  his  horse  and  ordered  A.  P.  Hill  to  charge,  as 
"Jackson  was  coming!"  Longstreet  was  held  until  Jack- 
son came  in  sight — and  then  the  battle  was  on!!  Long- 
street  gave  his  troops  General  Lee's  final  command,  and 
from  two  P.  M.  until  dark  the  battle  raged. 

The  victory  remained  with  the  Confederates.  They 
saved  the  Capitol  of  the  Confederacy  from  the  enemy 
when  McClellan  was  sure  he  had  it  in  his  very  clutch. 
There  were  captured  ten  thousand  prisoners,  35,000  stand 
of  small  arms,  and  50  superior  cannon  and  immense 
stores.  General  Lee  said  in  his  modest  way:  "We  regret 
that  more  has  not  been  accomplished  but  regret  gives 
way  to  gratitude  to  the  Sovereign  ruler  of  the  universe." 
Said  General  Stonewall  Jackson:  "Gratitude  is  due  to 
God  for  this  great  victory." 

As  General  Lee  sat  in  Hogan's  house  he  had  utmost 
confidence  in  these  Generals:  Jackson,  Longstreet,  the 
two  Hills,  and  General  Ewell.  On  the  29th  was  the  battle 
of  Savage  Station;  on  the  30th  that  of  Frazier's  Farm; 
on  July  1st,  of  Malvern  Hill. 

It  was  no  time  or  place  for  political  generals.  The 
time  was  too  dangerous,  and  the  crisis  too  great.  He  had 
also  his  old  regiment  of  Virginia  troops.  They  loved  him, 
they  were  also  close  to  him,  night  and  day.  I  haven't 
time  to  go  through  the  series  of  battles,  the  dreadful  car- 
nage, the  varying  fortunes  of  these  troops,  but  it  is  a  good 
time  to  say  that  Stonewall  Jackson  was  shot  down,  to 
death,  by  a  mistake,  and  by  his  own  troops.  General  Long- 

235 


street  was  also  shot  by  mistake  of  his  own  troops — and 
was  troubled  with  his  wounds  to  his  dying  day.  General 
A.  P.  Hill  was  killed  near  the  close  of  the  war — and  spared 
the  trial  of  the  final  surrender.  He  was  one  of  our  great- 
est Confederate  Generals.  The  battle  of  Sharpsburg  was 
a  mistake,  as  we  see  it  now.  General  Lee  was  encouraged 
to  go  into  Maryland  with  the  hope  that  the  Southern  sym- 
pathizers would  rally  in  force  and  recruit  his  army.  The 
battle  of  Gettysburg  was  a  similar  mistake.  General  Lee 
was  mistaken.  He  was  not  afraid  to  say  so.  Efforts  have 
been  made  in  various  quarters  to  charge  blame  on  one 
of  his  beloved  Generals.  The  human  heart  is  too  prone 
to  seek  to  fasten  blame — in  the  heat  of  political  fury. 

At  last  came  the  fateful  day  at  Appomattox.  The  end 
was  near.  General  Lee  could  not  postpone.  His  ragged, 
hungry  and  shoeless  legions  were  depleted  to  but  little 
over  25,000  men.  The  enemy  was  so  near  and  had  so 
completely  surrounded  him  that  he  saw  the  hour  had 
nearly  come — when  he  could  do  nothing  but  surrender. 

I  had  a  tragic  story  of  the  last  night  before  the  end, 
from  General  Charles  Field,  who  was  in  command  of  the 
Virginia  troops,  who  went  into  the  army  with  General 
Lee  at  the  beginning  of  the  Confederate  war. 

General  Field  said  General  Lee  understood  that  General 
Grant  was  not  far  away  and  would  propose  terms  of  sur- 
render on  the  following  day.  A  Council  of  War  was  held 
in  General  Lee's  tent,  and  matters  discussed.  After  mid- 
night, when  the  Council  adjouned,  General  Lee  asked  Gen- 
eral Longstreet  to  remain  with  him  after  the  others  had 
gone.  He  said  he  hoped  there  would  be  terms  offered  that 
he  might  reasonably  accept  for  the  army,  but  he  could 
not  listen  to  dishonorable  terms,  etc.  He  had  made  up 
his  mind  to  try  to  cut  his  way  into  the  mountains  of  Vir- 
ginia, in  such  an  exigency,  and  die  in  the  attempt.  Look- 
ing General  Longstreet  full  in  the  face  he  asked  this  ques- 
tion, "Will  you  go  with  me,  in  this  event  and  lead  the  for- 
lorn hope?"  General  Field  said  it  was  a  wonderful  in- 
terview, knowing  both  men  as  he  knew  them — -both  ani- 
mated by  the  same  courage,  and  same  patriotism. 

Longstreet  grasped  the  hand  of  his  chief  and  replied, 
"General  Lee,  I  will  go  with  you!"  The  terms  were  not 
dishonorable  and  the  end  came  quietly.  I  am  hoping  that 
Georgians  will  in  a  coming  day  erect  a  suitable  monument 
on  the  Capitol  grounds  in  Atlanta  and  dedicate  it  to  Lee 
and  Longstreet.  I  wish  it  might  come  in  my  time,  and 
that  I  could  be  there  to  see!      Georgia  owes  it  to  them! 

General  Lee  was  never  greater  in  his  noble  life  than 
when  he  rode  down  the  lines  after  the  terms  of  surrender 
had  been  signed  and  bade  good  bye  to  his  old  soldiers.  He 
wasted  no  words,  he  made  no  complaints,  he  reviled  no- 
body, he  accepted  the  inevitable  as  nobly  as  he  had  an- 
nounced   victory.      "Men!    we   have    fought   through    four 

236 


years  of  bloody  war.     I  have  done  the  best  I  could  for  you." 

He  retired  to  his  rented  house  in  Richmond,  with  no 
income,  nothing  left  of  the  fortune  that  he  had  sacrificed 
to  remain  with  his  kindred  on  the  soil  of  Virginia.  With 
a  large  family  to  care  for,  the  future  must  have  looked 
gloomy  enough.  After  things  had  rested  for  some  months, 
he  entered  upon  his  duties  as  president  of  a  boy's  college 
in  his  native  State,  and  within  less  than  five  years  he 
went  to  his  Eternal  reward!  He  was  as  much  greater  than 
his  former  property,  as  William  of  Orange  when  he  opened 
the  dykes  of  Holland  to  stop  invading  armies.  He  was 
greater  in  defeat  than  his  conquerors  were  in  victory, 
because  of  his  self-poise,  his  calm  endurance,  and  humble 
Christian  Faith  in  the  darkest  hours  of  his  life. 

General  Lee  was  a  wonderful  father.  I  have  a  letter 
written  to  his  young  son,  then  at  school,  be.fore  the  war 
came  on: 

"My  dear  Son: 

"I  am  just  in  the  act  of  leaving  home  for  New  Mexico. 
My  old  regiment  has  been  ordered  to  that  distant  region. 
I  must  hasten  to  see  they  are  properly  taken  care  of.  I 
have  but  little  to  add  in  reply  to  your  letters  of  March 
26-27-28.  Your  letters  breathe  the  true  spirit  of  frankness. 
They  have  given  your  mother  and  myself  great  pleasure. 
You  must  study  to  be  frank  with  the  world.  Frankness  is 
the  child  of  liberty  and  courage.  Say  what  you  mean  to 
to  on  every  occasion.  I  take  it  for  granted  you  mean  to 
do  right.  If  a  friend  asks  a  favor  you  must  grant  it  if 
it  is  reasonable. 

"If  not,  plainly  tell  him  you  cannot.  You  will  wrong 
him  and  wrong  yourself  by  equivocations  of  any  kind. 
Never  do  a  wrong  thing  to  make  a  friend.  The  man  who 
requires  you  to  do  so  is  bought  dearly  at  a  sacrifice.  Deal 
kindly,  but  firmly  with  your  classmates.  Above  all  do  not 
appear  to  be  to  others  what  you  are  not.  There  is  no 
more  dangerous  experiment  than  that  of  undertaking  to 
be  one  thing  before  a  man's  face  and  another  behind  his 
back.  We  should  live,  act,  and  say  nothing  to  the  injury 
of  any  one.  It  is  not  only  best  as  a  matter  of  principle 
but  it  is  the  path  to  peace  and  honor. 

"In  regard  to  duty,  let  me  in  conclusion  of  this  hasty 
letter  inform  you  that  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago,  there 
was  a  day  of  remarkable  gloom  and  darkness,  still  known 
as  the  Dark  Day,  when  the  light  of  the  sun  was  slowly 
extinguished  by  an  eclipse. 

"The  Legislature  of  Connecticut  was  in  session  and  the 
members  saw  the  sudden  and  unexpected  darkening  com- 
ing on.  It  was  supposed  by  many  to  be  the  Last  Day  of 
Judgment.  Some  one  in  the  confusion  of  the  moment 
moved  an  adjournment.  There  was  one  old  Puritan  legis- 
lator, by  name  Davenport  of  Stamford.  He  arose  and  said, 
"If  the  Last  Day  has  come,  he  desired  to  be  found  at  his 

237 


post  of  duty."     He  moved  that  candles  be  brought  in,  so 
that  the  House  could  proceed  with  its  duty. 

"There  was  a  quietness  in  that  man's  mind  of  heavenly 
wisdom,  and  inflexible  willingness  to  do  present  duty.  Duty 
is  the  sublimest  word  in  our  language.  You  cannot  do 
more.     You  should  never  desire  to  do  less. 

"Never  let  me  or  your  mother  wear  a  gray  hair  for  lack 
of  duty  on  your  part. 

"Your  affectionate  father. 

"R.  E.  LEE." 

I  greatly  wish  that  this  letter  might  be  read  on  the 
birthday  of  General  Lee  in  our  public  schools,  I  am  sure  it 
would  do  good  and  how  better  could  that  holiday  be  cele- 
brated? 

General  Lee  had  two  or  more  sons  in  the  Confederate 
Army.  His  son,  Rob,  was  a  private  in  Rockbridge  Artil- 
lery and  with  Jackson  in  the  Valley  campaign.  Rob  was 
dirty,  ragged,  worn  out  with  marching  and  crept  under 
one  of  the  gun  caissons  for  a  nap.  Somebody  roused  him 
and  said  there  was  somebody  wanting  to  see  him.  Half 
awake,  he  crawled  out.  and  there  was  his  father  and  his 
staff  all  in  new  uniforms.  Sometime  afterward  Rob 
was  promoted,  but  before  that  his  mother  asked  General 
Lee  to  keep  Rob  near  him.  He  replied  he  was  opposed  to 
officers  surrounding  themselves  with  near  realtives.  "It 
is  wrong  in  principle  that  selecting  should  be  made  from 
private  and  social  reasons,  rather  than  from  the  public 
good.  I  prefer  that  Rob  should  remain  in  independent 
position  in  the  line  where  he  could  rise  by  his  own  merit, 
and  not  through  the  favor  of  his  own  relatives." 

His  daughter,  Annie,  died  in  North  Carolina  in  October, 
1862,  where  she  had  gone  for  her  health.  He  wrote  to  his 
wife:  "The  death  of  our  dear  Annie  is  to  me  a  bitter 
pang,  but  the  Lord  gave  and  the  Lord  hath  taken  away. 
Blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord.  In  the  quiet  hours  of 
night,  when  there  is  nothing  to  lighten  the  full  weight  of 
my  grief  I  feel  as  if  I  shall  be  overwhelmed,  but  God,  in 
this,  has  mingled  his  mercy  with  the  blow  in  selecting  that 
one  best  prepared  to  leave.  May  you  be  able  to  join  me 
in  saying  God's  Will  be  done!"  When  the  army  was  near 
Charlottesville,  in  1864,  the  officers  in  General  Fitzhugh 
Lee's  command  Rave  a  great  ball,  and  sent  General  Lee  a 
ticket.  In  a  reply  letter  he  wrote  the  only  word  of  censure 
that  appears  in  his  writing:  "This  is  a  bad  time  for  such 
things.  We  have  too  grave  subjects  on  hand  to  engage 
in  trivial  amusements.  I  would  rather  the  officers  would 
putertain  themselves  in  fattening  their  horses,  healing 
their  men  and  recruiting  their  regiments.  There  are  too 
many  Lrps  on  that  commitep.  I  like  them  to  be  present 
at  battles,  but  can  excuse  them  at  balls.  I  think  it  would 
be  better  if  Fitz  Lee  moved  his  camp  further  from  Char- 

238 


lottesville.  He  and  I  are  too  old  for  such  assemblies.  I 
want  him  to  write  how  his  men  are,  his  horses  and  what  I 
can  do  to  fill  up  his  ranks." 

After  he  was  President  of  the  College  many  girl  friends 
visited  his  own  daughters  of  whom  there  were  several. 
There  were  callers  every  evening  from  students  and  young 
professors.  Their  house  was  small  and  the  son  writes: 
"If  his  daughters  had  guests,  my  father  sat  with  my 
mother  in  the  dining  room,  adjoining  the  drawing  room. 
When  the  clock  struck  ten  he  would  rise  and  close  shut- 
ters carefully  and  slowly.  If  that  did  not  succeed  as  a 
hint,  he  would  simply  say,  "Good  night,  young  gentlemen." 

General  Lee  always  held  family  prayers  and  they  had 
to  have  breakfast  at  seven  so  he  might  reach  the  chapel 
at  a  quarter  to  eight,  where  prayers  were  held  in  College 
Chapel.  That  was  early  rising  in  the  home,  for  prayers 
were  held  before  breakfast.  His  daughter-in-law  said  "she 
did  not  believe  General  Lee  would  have  had  a  high  opinion 
of  even  General  Washington  (if  he  could  return  to  earth) 
if  he  did  not  attend  family  prayers." 

Some  letters  to  his  wife,  written  before  Virginia  seceded, 
are  pathetic.  He  did  not  believe  secession  advisable  (and 
it.  was  not)  and  yet  he  cast  his  lot  with  Virginia,  knowing 
he  had  all  to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain.  He  speaks  of 
Arlington  being  lost  to  them,  but  hopes  they  will  have  a 
farm  that  will  yield  cornbread  and  bacon,  but  he  warns 
her  that  the  war  will  not  be  a  short  one — that  the  South 
need  not  rely  upon  foreign  aid,  not  even  on  account  of 
the  Trent  affair,  as  the  United  States  would  give  up  Mason 
and  Slidell  rather  than  go  to  war  with  England,  which 
came  true. 

This  great  man  accepted  poverty  and  defeat  with  a 
resignation  that  was  wonderful,  when  we  think  of  his 
large  family  of  daughters  and  sons  and  loss  of  fortune 
and  loss  of  Arlington,  the  elegant  home  of  his  family  in 
days  of  peace.  He  never  owned  a  home  any  more.  I  have 
a  clipping  from  "The  Youth's  Companion,"  printed  in  Bos- 
ton, February,  22,  1912,  that  shows  that  even  his  former 
foes  accorded  him   great  respect. 

FEBRUARY  22,  1912. 
GENERAL  LEE. 

"The  whole  life  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee  was  a  fine, 
although  unobtrusive,  protest  against  the  worship  of 
wealth.  He  stood,  as  Tennyson  wrote  of  Wellington, 
"four-square  to  all  the  winds  that  blew!"  He  was  above 
money  and  beyond  price.  Here  is  the  proof,  from  Mr. 
Charles  Foster  Smith's  recent  book,  "Reminiscences  and 
Sketches": 

Owner  of  the  baronial  manor  of  Arlington  and  possessor 
otherwise    of   a   princely   fortune,   General   Lee   had    lost 

239 


all  in  the  cataclysm  of  civil  war.  And  when  he  was  thus 
impoverished,  in  the  autumn  of  1863,  the  city  council  of 
Richmond  voted  him  a  house  for  his  family;  but  he  de- 
clined it,  suggesting  "that  whatever  means  the  city  council 
may  have  to  spare  for  this  purpose  may  be  devoted  to  the 
relief  of  the  families  of  our  soldiers  in  the  field." 

After  the  war  an  English  nobleman  offered  him  a  coun- 
try estate,  with  an  annuity  of  three  thousand  pounds; 
but  he  declined,  saying,  "I  must  abide  the  fortunes  and 
share  the  fate  of  my  people." 

In  1865  he  accepted  the  presidency  of  Washington  Col- 
lege (now  Washington  and  Lee  University,)  at  a  salary 
of  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year;  but  when  General  Ewell, 
in  1868,  gave  five  hundred  dollars  to  the  college,  on  con- 
dition that  it  be  added  to  General  Lee's  salary,  the  latter 
declined  it,  writing  General  Ewell,  "I  already  receive 
from  the  college  a  larger  amount  than  my  poor  services 
are  worth." 

He  was  invited  to  become  the  head  of  a  firm  in  New 
York  to  represent  Southern  commerce,  with  a  salary  of 
fifty  thousand  dollars;  but  this,  too,  he  declined.  "I  am 
grateful,"  he  said,  "but  I  have  a  self-imposed  task  which 
1  must  accomplish.  I  have  led  the  young  men  of  the  South 
in  battle;  I  have  seen  many  of  them  die  on  the  field;  I 
shall  devote  my  remaining  energies  to  training  young  men 
to  do  their  duty  in  life." 

The  presidency  of  the  Southern  Insurance  Company,  in 
which  Hampton,  Gordon,  B.  H.  Hill,  and  other  distin- 
guished ex-Confederates  were  directors,  was  offered  him 
at  a  salary  of  ten  thousand  dollars.  But  this  also  he  de- 
clined, saying,  "I  feel  that  I  ought  not  to  abandon  the  posi- 
tion I  hold  at  Washington  College  at  this  time,  or  as  long 
as  I  can  be  of  service  to  it." 

The  distinguished  ex-Confederate  officer  sent  to  make 
him  the  offer  said: 

"We  do  not  wish  you  to  give  up  your  present  position, 
general,  or  to  discharge  any  duties  in  connection  with  our 
company.  The  truth  is,  we  only  want  your  name  con- 
nected with  the  company.  That  would  amply  compensate 
us  for  the  salary  we  offer  you." 

General  Lee's  face  flushed.  "I  am  sorry,  sir,"  he  replied, 
"that  you  are  so  little  acquainted  with  my  character  as  to 
suppose  that  my  name  is  for  sale  at  any  price.' 

One  of  the  general's  biographers  states  that  he  "found 
his  letter-book  filled  with  replies  to  offers  of  this  char- 
acter." 

In  May,  1870,  when  General  Lee  was  away  seeking 
health,  the  board  of  trustees  of  the  college  deeded  the 
president's  house,  which  had  been  built  under  General 
Lee's  supervision,  to  Mrs*  Lee,  with  an  annuity  of  thirty- 
five  hundred  dollars. 

240 


But  he  declined  it,  saying,  "I  am  unwilling  that  my 
family  should  become  a  tax  on  the  college,  but  desire  that 
all  its  funds  should  be  devoted  to  the  purposes  of  educa- 
tion. I  know  that  my  wishes  on  this  subject  are  equally 
shared  by  my  wife." 

After  the  general's  death,  the  trustees  sent  Mrs.  Lee  a 
check  for  the  first  quarter  of  the  annuity,  but  she  promptly 
returned  it,  with  a  beautiful  letter  of  thanks,  saying  that 
she  could  not  accept  the  annuity  and  was  ready  to  give 
up  the  house  to  the  new  president  whom  they  should  elect. 

The  new  president  elected  was  her  own  son,  and  she 
died  in  the  president's  house. 

There  were  famous  Confederate  Generals  who  did  allow 
the  use  of  their  names  in  questionable  enterprises.  The 
Lottery  Company  of  Louisiana  was  championed  by  General 
Beauregard  and  General  Early.  They  secured  large  sala- 
ries for  the  use  of  their  names,  and  eternity  alone  will  tell 
how  many  thousands  of  dollars  that  went  out  of  the 
pockets  of  Confederate  soldiers  into  that  terrible  gambling 
concern  and  never  returned  them  a  penny  in  profit.  There 
was  universal  regret  that  these  Confederate  Generals 
allowed  the  purchase  of  their  names  and  influence.  The 
time  came  when  the  strong  arm  of  the  U.  S.  Government 
had  to  be  applied  to  squelching  out  this  foul  den  of  specu- 
lation and  graft. 

There  were  other  Confederate  Generals  that  many  of  us 
knew  in  person  who  were  used  in  divers  schemes  that 
were  also  used  to  decoy  Confederate  soldiers  into  swin- 
dling enterprises.  General  Lee  could  not  afford  to  do  that. 
"His  name  was  not  for  sale." 

In  conclusion,  I  believe  I  am  authorized  to  say  that  the 
"Lost  Cause"  has  still  one  jewel  among  its  assets — one  so 
valuable  that  the  blight  of  Civil  War  does  not  discount, 
that  age  has  not  tarnished  and  Time  will  never  corrode, 
namely  the  life  and  character  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee. 
It  grows  brighter  each  year  that  has  passed  and  I  esteem 
it  a  privilege  to  stand  in  this  presence  and  say  to  this 
large  company  that  I  lived  in  General  Lee's  time  and  have 
been  spared  nearly  fifty  years  since  he  passed  on  and  I 
have  never  heard  of  the  taint  of  gold  in  his  history.  He 
was  a  true-hearted  Christian  soldier  and  Southern  gentle- 
man! 

With  a  word  to  the  few  remaining  veterans  who  attend 
these  exercises  today,  the  lesson  for  us  is  a  renewed  cove- 
nant with  ourselves  to  give  inflexible  adherence  to  duty — 
our  present  duty.  The  respect  and  confidence  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Georgia  is  lavished  upon  you.  They  intend  to  show 
you  respect  and  confidence  so  long  as  you  remain  with 
them. 

While  you  will  never  be  called  upon  again  to  fight  the 
battles  of  your  country,  you  are  expected  to  stand  in  your 
places,    and    acquit   yourselves,    like    patriots    and    golden- 

241 


hearted  citizens  of  Georgia.  It  is  your  privilege  to  pose 
as  an  example  to  the  younger  men  of  your  State,  to  stand 
for  the  good  things  in  civic  righteousness  that  General  Lee 
stood  for  in  the  sixties. 

It  is  your  especial  duty  to  examine  into  the  qualifica- 
tions of  your  office  seekers  and  to  patriotically  advise 
younger  men  to  stand  in  their  places  and  vote  for  good 
and  true  men,  that  your  beloved  State  may  enjoy  the 
peaceable  fruits  of  righteousness.  There  are  new  and 
untried  conditions  that  are  forcing  themselves  to  the  front. 
This  European  war  will  crowd  a  vast  number  of  persons 
upon  this  country,  who  know  nothing  of  our  laws  or  our 
language.  They  can  vote  very  early  after  an  allotted 
time.  Coming  from  a  section  where  blood  and  carnage 
have  run  riot,  they  must  be  handled  with  exceeding  care 
and  patience,  as  well  as  justice,  if  this  Republic  is  to  be 
preserved. 

As  you  were  brave  in  war,  show  continued  courage  in 
meeting  these  coming  dangers. 

The  time  cannot  be  long  for  you  or  myself;  but  I  im- 
plore you  to  cast  your  votes  for  clean  government,  and 
in  behalf  of  human  liberty.  Nothing  else  is  worth  troub- 
ling about.  As  survivors,  where  so  many  of  your  comrades 
perished  on  the  field  of  battle,  in  hospitals  or  with  linger- 
ing wounds,  you  owe  a  duty  to  their  widows  and  especially 
to  their  children  and  grandchildren. 

You  have  been  spared  in  the  providence  of  God  to  remain 
nearly  half  a  century.  You  must  defend  the  Cause  of 
Right,  as  your  Great  Commander  was  glad  to  do.  Others 
have  told  you  when  and  how  these  memorial  days  were 
instituted.  They  will  be  celebrated  long  after  you  and  I 
have  passed  over  the  river. 

As  one  who  lived  through  the  war-time,  who  suffered 
its  privations  and  endured  its  dangers  and  difficulties,  I 
wish  for  you  the  best  things,  here  and  hereafter,  with  a 
sincere  prayer  that  at  eventide,  when  the  shadows  come, 
it  may  be  well  with  you  and  me! 


"THE    STRIPED     PIG    OF    GEORGIA"     IS    WHAT    MRS. 
FELTON    CALLS   THE    DISPENSARY   AT   ATHENS. 

She   Says   It    Is    No    Better  Than    a     Noted     New   England 

"Zebra,"    in    Which    Liquor    Was    Sold — Some 

Warm    Remarks    Touching    the 

Pending  Controversy. 


Near  Cartersville,  Oct.  27,  1898. 
To  the  Editor  of  The  Journal: 

I  am  in  receipt  of  your  letter  asking  for  my  views  upon 
the  following  subject: 


242 


"Is  it  right  for  a  church  member  to  sell  whisky  in  a  dis- 
pensary, under  the  conditions  existing  at  Athens?" 

I  take  it  that  you  wish  for  my  individual  notions,  and  I 
will  say  I  knew  nothing  of  the  aforesaid  conditions  at 
Athens  until  I  read  The  Journal  containing  an  elaborate 
exposition  of  the  subject  about  a  week  ago.  Being  an 
humble  member  of  the  Methodist  church,  and  an  old- 
fashioned  temperance  woman,  I  do  not  think  I  could  be 
induced  to  sell  intoxicants  to  anybody,  were  the  salary 
much  larger  than  such  a  traffic  affords  in  the  city  of 
Athens.  I  grant  to  every  person  the  right  to  choose  their 
own  profession  or  calling  in  life,  their  conscience  bearing 
witness,  but  a  traffic  that  makes  madmen  of  those  who 
drink  intoxicants — women-beaters  and  child-starvers,  I 
feel  safe  in  saying  is  an  unenviable  profession — for  those 
who  may  be  hereafter  judged  by  "the  deeds  done  in  the 
body." 

My  astonishment  was  great  when  I  read  of  the  united 
action  of  the  churches  in  Athens  in  favor  of  an  open  liquor 
shop,  where  corn  whisky  was  the  favorite  beverage,  and 
presided  over  by  a  member  of  the  Baptist  church;  with  a 
Methodist  assistant  to  hand  out  the  liquor  bottles  and  take 
in  the  money  for  the  same.  The  salary  is  doubtless  very 
satisfactory  to  all  concerned.  But  a  cold  chill  of  appre- 
hension passed  over  me  when  Manager  Johnson  declared 
that  the  "best  ladies"  in  the  city  were  his  patrons,  and  said 
they  called  in  person  to  purchase.  Those  bottled  liquors 
are  the  sort  of  purchases  they  could  only  make  in  such 
an  Athens  dispensary.  I  wish  the  elect  ladies  of  Athens, 
who  neither  buy  nor  drink  his  wares  would  rise  up  and 
clear  their  skirts  of  this  unenviable  reputation  in  the  pub- 
lic prints,  because  I  have  strong  faith  in  the  women  of 
Georgia  and  unlimited  confidence  in  their  sound  judgment 
regarding  the  saloon  system  as  carried  out  among  us. 

Perhaps  Manager  Johnson  was  misrepresented  in  this 
strange  declaration,  for  Senator  Turner  disclaims  the 
Athens  dispensary  bill,  and  says  his  bill  no  more  re- 
sembled the  Athens  affair  "than  a  house  cat  does  a  Bengal 
tiger." 

I  am  a  true,  loyal  friend  to  the  university,  but  I  think 
the  hardest  blow  ever  leveled  at  its  progress  was  this  open 
legalized  dispensary  in  the  public  streets  of  Athens.  New- 
ton county  voted  out  barrooms  for  the  sake  of  Emory 
college.  Bibb  is  now  struggling  in  behalf  of  Mercer;  but 
Athens  with  fatuous  indifference  to  public  sentiment,  has 
opened  a  liquor  shop  with  a  new  name  right  under  the 
shadow  of  the  time-honored  State  University,  and  for- 
sooth, brings  it  forward  as  chaperoned  by  preachers  and 
church   members! 

This  discussion  has  thrown  considerable  light  on  the 
subject  of  university  interests,  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  in  my  opinion  the  trustees  should  allow  the  people  of 

243 


Clarke  county  to  make  a  speedy  choice  between  the  "corn 
whisky"  business  and  the  public  education  of  the  boys  of 
Georgia,  in  the  city  of  Athens. 

I  have  heard  that  old  story,  namely,  "that  prohibition 
does  not  prohibit."  Prohibition  always  prohibits  unless 
courts  officials  are  unworthy  of  trust,  and  grand  juries  are 
made  up  of  incapable  men.  When  men  are  courageous 
enough  to  execute  the  prohibition  law,  and  whisky  drink- 
ing officers  are  voted  out — then  there  will  be  no  trouble 
with  prohibition. 

But  the  idea  of  church  members  and  preachers  appoint- 
ing bartenders,  from  the  prominent  churches  in  Athens, 
and  chaperoning  the  sale  of  $70,000  worth  of  intoxicants 
within  a  single  year,  tells  the  story  for  Clarke  county! 
That  amount  of  liquor  in  the  stomachs  and  brains  of 
Clarke  county  citizens  uncovers  the  dispensary  project  in 
its  proper  light.  It  is  preposterous  to  claim  this  Athens 
liquor  shop  as  a  temperance  measure. 

In  a  New  England  prohibition  town,  once  upon  a  time, 
there  was  set  up  a  sort  of  animal  show — and  circulars  is- 
sued for  the  public  gave  notice  of  a  zebra,  but  when  the 
knowing  ones  went  inside  they  found  a  pig  gaudily  striped, 
and  the  whisky  was  handed  out  for  what  was  paid  as  en- 
trance fee.  This  Athens  dispensary  should  go  down  in 
history  as  the  striped  pig  of  Georgia,  for  liquor  selling  is 
the  same  sort  of  thing  whether  it  is  managed  by  church 
members  or  by  Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  devils!  It  is  not 
the  handling  of  the  liquor  that  makes  the  evil,  but  the 
victims  are  the  men  who  buy  and  drink  it.  Satan  must 
have  patted  himself  vigorously  when  he  looked  over  the 
shoulders  of  preachers,  church  members  and  the  "best 
ladies,"  and  found  his  striped  pig  in  clover — about  the 
State  University!  Saints,  angels  and  ministers  of  grace 
defend  us! 

I  remember  hearing  of  the  heroic  temperance  pioneer 
speeches  of  Chief  Justice  Joseph  Henry  Lumpkin,  in  con- 
cert with  Josiah  Flournoy  and  Dubney  P.  Jones.  It  seems 
to  me  that  Athens  would  be  the  last  place  in  the  world 
to  go  back  on  the  record  of  distinguished  citizens.     Alas! 

That  Sarepta  Baptist  association  perhaps  retains  a 
memory  of  the  noble  names  that  stood  for  righteousness 
and  good  government  in  the  long  ago.  Thanks  to  those 
noble  preachers.  For  myself,  I  would  prefer  plain  open 
barrooms,  with  suggestive  green  blinds,  and  "No  minors 
allowed  in  here,"  to  the  deceitful,  Pecksniffian  liquor  traf- 
fic, that  entraps  both  churchmen  and  innocent  children — 
under  the  name  of  dispensary.  And  I  have  no  patience 
with  the  use  of  the  livery  of  heaven  to  secure  enormous 
profits  on  liquor.  Princeton  had  a  lamentable  experience 
with  dispensary  sales.  Yale  disgraced  itself  with  the 
debauchery  of  students,  meanwhile  claiming  perfect  immu- 
nity from  the  evil.     The  snake  is  bad  enough  out  in  the 

244 


open — where  you  can  strike  a  fair  blow  at  it.  When  you 
warm  it  at  your  hearthstone  you  endanger  preachers  and 
churchmen  if  you  hit  it — judging  from  the  enormous  af- 
fair set  up  in  Athens.  There  is  a  state  institution  down 
at  Milledgeville  that  tells  us  what  will  result  from  the 
unabridged  sale  and  use  of  whisky.  The  state  peniten- 
tiary and  almost  countless  county  chaingangs  will  verify 
that  story.  It  surpasses  belief  that  preachers  and  church 
members  should  claim  public  protection  because  it  is  hand- 
ed over  the  counter  by  church  people.  If  there  is  a  sober 
brain  to  hire,  the  saloonist  will  get  him  to  manage  his 
cash  box.  The  Liquor  Dealers'  political  association  is 
careful  to  nominate  its  sober  but  ambitious  candidates  to 
fill  public  offices  and  carry  out  its  well-planned  designs 
for  self  protection.  But  what  about  the  poor  drunkard 
who  upsets  his  own  mind  and  becomes  a  maniac,  in  his 
miserable  cravings  for  the  drink  that  destroys  him?  Who 
is  accountable,  the  seller  or  the  buyer? 

"Who  butchers  his  children  and  poisons  his  wife 
Must  be  pitied,  not  blamed,  though  he  forfeit  his  life. 
For  he  could  no  more  help  doing  what  he  has  done 
Than  the  train  could  hang  back  when  the  engine 
moves  on." 
In  conclusion  I  would  like  to  say  that  I  fully  believe  the 
time  is  coming  when  our  successors  in  life  will  look  back 
with  horror  to  a  period  in  our  history  when  a  man  could 
buy  a  license  to  debauch  his  fellow  man.     And  if  the  his- 
tory  of   the   Athens     dispensary    shall     travel    down    the 
stream  of  time  it  should  be  accompanied  with  an  account 
of  the  sale  of  $70,000  worth  of  strong  drink  within  three 
hundred  and   sixty-five   days,   in  a  small  provincial  town, 
"to   point  the  moral — and  adorn  the  tale."     If  the   story 
should    be    illustrated    with    church    members    discussing 
religion    across    the    counter,    while    the    "best    ladies" 
thronged  the  room  to  get  a  bottle,  passing  out  "without 
insult,"   I  guess  the   dispensary  would  be  set  down   as  a 
relic  of  the  dark  ages.     Imagine  John  Wesley  or  Charles 
Spurgeon  hunting  up  the  brethren  in  a  liquor  shop — espe- 
cially if  they  exhorted  from  the  text,  "Woe  unto  him  that 
putteth  the  bottle  to  his  brother's  lips!" 

I  am  informed  that  women  and  minors  must  keep  out 
of  Atlanta  liquor  shops.  In  Athens  we  are  gravely  told 
that  anybody  that  is  full  grown — man  or  woman — white  or 
black — can  buy  a  bottle,  but  they  must  drink  around  the 
corner.  It  was  a  shallow  pretense  to  compel  the  drink- 
loving  student  to  hire  some  unscrupulous  citizen  to  slip  in 
and  make  for  him  his  purchases.  Why  not  allow  him  to 
go  along  with  the  "best  ladies,"  in  a  more  honorable  way? 
Who  doubts  for  a  moment  his  ability  to  buy  any  quan- 
tity "from  a  pint  up,"  when  he  gets  ready  for  it?  I  have 
claimed  for  Athens  superior  advantages  as  a  place  of 
education,   when   anxious   mothers   would   tell  me   it  was 

245 


dangerous  to  sobriety  and  prudent  conduct.  If  I  had  been 
earlier  made  aware  of  the  exceeding  accessibility  of  this 
dispensary  business  I  should  not  have  been  found  trying 
to  pick  a  briar  from  a  lame  finger  of  excuse,  but  should 
have  agreed  at  once  that  Athens  had  a  cancer  in  its  midst, 
sufficiently  developed  to  disease  the  whole  body  politic. 

In  direct  reply  to  your  question,  "under  the  conditions 
at  Athens,"  I  am  oliged  to  say  I  am  simply  amazed  and 
disheartened  at  the  aforesaid  "conditions."  The  state  is 
paying  high  to  provide  dispensary  victims — for  seventy 
thousand  dollars'  worth  of  intoxicants  in  a  single  year 
carries  along  the  evidence  to  sustain  the  fact  of  fearful 
work.  Church  membership  thereabouts  is  evidently  a 
thrifty  policy.  If  I  should  ever  foolishly  resolve  to  make 
liquor  selling  my  business  in  life  I  would  join  the  church 
in  Athens  and  call  my  dram-shop  a  dispensary.  Respect- 
fully, MRS.  W.  H.  FELTON 


WHY   I   AM  A  SUFFRAGIST? 


The  Subjection  of  Women  and  the  Enfranchisement 
of   Women. 

Doubtless  it  is  well  to  state  that  I  have  been  moved  to 
publish  my  views  on  this  subject  by  the  great  number  of 
letters  that  I  receive  from  men  and  women  all  over  Geor- 
gia, asking  for  information  on  the  subject  of  Votes  for 
Women. 

Almost  in  touch  with  the  eightieth  mile-post  of  my  life's 
journey,  and  understanding  that  there  can  be  no  selfish 
plea  in  my  own  heart,  as  I  am  only  struggling  for  the 
good  of  those  to  come  after  me,  I  decided  to  publish  my 
views  on  the  subjection,  as  well  as  the  enfranchisement 
of  my  own  sex,  as  a  convenient  reply  to  these  numerous 
appeals,  and  for  the  satisfaction  of  my  own  descendants, 
after  I  have  passed  on  to  my  eternal  reward. 

Every  sane  and  sensible  reader  of  current  events  is  al- 
ready convinced  that  the  march  of  progress  will  bring 
equality  in  the  rights  of  citizenship  to  every  State  in  the 
Union — time  enough  being  given.  In  the  year  1912,  four 
millions  of  women  were  entitled  to  vote  in  County,  State 
and  National  elections.  This  privilege  was  given  them 
by  the  men  voters  of  nine  States  and  one  territory.  In 
1914,  under  most  unfavorable  conditions,  two  other  States 
were  added  to  the  enfranchised  States.  For  many  years, 
partial  suffrage  for  women  has  been  granted  by  the  men 
voters  in  other  partially  enfranchised  States.  In  every 
case  it  has  been  accomplished  by  the  votes  of  men;  and 
the  result  has  been  enthusiastically  approved  by  the  Gov- 

246 


ernors,  Senators  and  representatives  of  those  free  States. 
For  lack  of  space  I  must  omit  these  commendations  at  this 
time,  but  I  have  the  data  in  hand  and  whenever  my  state- 
ments are  disputed  I  will  make  suitable  reply.  There  can 
be  no  retreat  in  this  war.  While  the  opposition  is  often 
rabid  and  in  a  manner  insulting  to  those  who  see  the  end 
from  the  beginning  and  who  have  courage  to  express  their 
honest  and  well  substantiated  convictions,  we  remember 
it  is  always  so  in  reform  movements.  Twenty  odd  years 
ago,  when  Georgia  was  full  of  bar-rooms  and  liquor  dis- 
tilleries— I  dared  to  go,  upon  request,  to  various  towns  and 
cities  in  Georgia  and  demand  protection  from  the  destruc- 
tion that  walked  in  darkness  and  wasted  a  noonday — 
and  which  destroyed  thousands  of  Georgia  homes — and 
crucified  hopes  of  tens  of  thousands  of  mothers  and  wives 
in  our  own  state.  I  was  not  only  fought  by  those  who 
were  making  fortunes  out  of  the  liquor  traffic,  but  by  poli- 
ticians and  even  churchmen.  I  was  often  warned  as  to 
what  would  happen  to  me  if  I  persisted.  To-day,  it  is 
expected  that  temperance  women  shall  publicly  debate 
this  subject,  hold  temperance  prayer-meetings  and  openly 
oppose  (with  their  limited  influence)  every  liquor  candi- 
date for  office.  I  have  had  knowledge  of  these  things  and 
I  have  decided  that  this  terrible  thing  was  voted  in  upon 
us  by  "big  interests"  and  can  only  be  voted  out  by  giving 
the  ballot  to  women— who  are  the  chief  victims.  Woman 
Suffrage  had  its  inception  in  this  fight  against  Saloons. 
The  W.  C.  T.  U.,  the  National  Organization,  is  pledged  to 
Woman  Suffrage. 

In  discussing  the  equality  of  sex  in  citizenship  it  is  well 
to  go  back,  briefly,  to  the  era  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  and 
Herbert  Spencer.  I  read  their  arguments  nearly  fifty 
years  ago  as  presented  in  the  celebrated  British  Reviews 
of  that  time.  Following  so  closely  upon  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  African  race  in  the  United  States,  the  subject 
was  interesting  to  me.  I  had  seen  the  negro  man  given 
his  freedom,  (liberty  to  own  himself)  and  also  endowed 
with  the  ballot,  to  be  able  to  hold  fast  to  his  liberty.  I 
saw  the  15th  amendment  adopted  by  the  Georgia  Legisla- 
ture, and  voted  for  by  various  men,  who  afterwards  posed 
as  rabid  Democrats.  The  story  appears  in  the  Journal 
of  the  House,  year  1869,  and  is  beyond  dispute.  I  noted 
also  that  our  prominent  politicians,  those  who  were  active 
in  secession  were  also  willing  to  see  the  15th  Amendment 
ratified,  because,  to  quote  Hon.  A.  H.  Stephens,  "Under 
it  all  the  whites  as  well  as  the  blacks  are  entitled  to  vote." 
These  prominent  statesmen  had  been  disfranchised  bv 
Federal  enactment.  They  had  been  very  active  in  politics 
before  the  Civil  War — had  taken  an  oath  to  support  the 
Federal  Constitution,  and  later  on  took  a  similar  oath  to 
support  the  Confederate  Constitution.  For  this  reason  it 
was  deemed  proper  by  our  conquerors  that  they  should  be 

247 


penalized  to  that  extent.  They  were  well-nigh  frantic 
because  of  this  disfranchisement.  The  arguments  they 
used — the  denunciations  they  hurled  at  their  so-called  op- 
pressors— and  their  demands  for  a  restoration  of  their 
liberties  are  most  satisfactory  arguments  for  those  who  now 
demand  enfranchment  of  women.  I  lived  in  those  stormy 
times.  It  is  not  hearsay  with  me.  They  repudiated  their  war 
debt  without  resistance.  They  adopted  the  13th  Amend- 
ment without  demur,  giving  freedom  to  the  negro  race, 
because  the  results  of  the  war  settled  that  dispute.  They 
fought  the  14th  and  15th  Amendments  until  they  became 
convinced  that  their  own  ballot  restoration  was  contingent 
upon  acceptance.  I  say  without  hesitation  that  they 
esteemed  the  ballot  privilege  superior  to  their  contention 
of  property  rights  in  slaves — as  of  greater  import  than  the 
billions  of  values  that  disappeared  after  Appomattox — 
and  of  such  importance  to  themselves,  as  to  compel  them 
to  give  the  ballot  to  their  former  slaves  so  as  to  be  able 
to  vote  and  especially  to  hold  office  under  their  State  and 
Federal  Governments.  Perhaps  it  is  this  high  estimate 
which  has  caused  eleven  states  and  one  territory  to  give 
the  ballot  to  their  women. 

Former  Subjection  of  Women. 

Savage  tribes  used  physical  force  to  manage  their 
women.  The  club  and  the  lash  were  their  only  arguments. 
Moslem  fanatics  go  a  step  further  in  saying  women  have 
no  souls.  According  to  statistics  these  Mohammedans 
comprise  about  one-third  of  such  religionists  at  this  time. 
Athenian  law  allowed  a  man  to  sell  his  wife  or  sister 
under  certain  conditions.  Feudal  law  allowed  men  to  im- 
prison their  sisters  in  convents — while  they  used  the  prop- 
erty that  was  rightfully  their  sisters — in  riotous  living. 

English  law,  in  the  time  of  Herbert  Spencer,  allowed  a 
man  to  beat  his  wife,  and  he  could  lock  her  in  any  room  in 
his  house,  and  keep  her  imprisoned  until  her  will  was  sub- 
dued to  his  own.  English  law  was  copied  by  the  Colonies 
of  America.  Lawyers  will  tell  you  now,  that  English  law 
has  been  the  basic  stone  of  our  laws — State  and  Federal. 
As  late  as  the  year  1857,  a  man  in  Georgia  was  allowed 
to  beat  his  wife,  provided  the  hickory  withe  was  no  larger 
than  his  thumb.  I  wish  I  knew  the  Georgian's  name  who 
introduced  the  bill  for  a  married  woman's  relief  in  1857, 
three  years  before  secession.  I  would  like  to  contribute 
to  a  fund  to  place  a  suitable  tablet  to  his  memory  in  our 
State  Capitol. 

As  late  as  1868  a  Supreme  Court  Judge  in  North  Caro- 
lina reiterated  the  law  allowing  a  man  to  beat  his  wife, 
with  a  rod  no  bigger  than  his  thumb.  In  his  verdict  (on 
a  wife  beating  case)  he  said  a  man  should  make  his  wife 
behave  herself,  otherwise  it  would  "engender  insubordi- 
nation." ' 

248 


A  woman  in  Georgia  could  not  own  her  own  wages — as 
late  as  1897.  Hon.  W.  H.  Fleming  introduced  the  bill  to 
allow  a  married  woman  to  receive  and  spend  what  she 
earned  outside  her  home.  Before  that  time  "her  man" 
could  demand  them  from  her  employer  on  pain  of  com- 
pelling him  to  pay  twice,  and  he  could  spend  them  where 
he  pleased,  in  a  dram  shop  or  gambling  den,  or  bawdy 
house — and  she  could  not  recover  them  to  her  own  use. 
Before  the  Civil  War,  a  married  woman  in  Georgia  could 
not  own  her  own  clothes.  When  she  went  to  her  new 
home  she  might  carry  a  fortune  in  lands  and  slaves,  but 
she  did  not  really  own  a  copper  cent  of  their  value. 
Thousands  of  slaves  and  lands  belonging  to  ante-bellum 
women  were  sold  for  the  husband's  security  debts.  Some- 
times her  first  information  was  received  when  the  sheriff 
came  to  dispossess  her.  Sometimes  a  marriage  contract 
was  required  by  anxious  parents,  but  the  woman  was  made 
to  suffer  for  it.  I  knew  a  young  woman  who  declined  a 
marriage  contract,  because  her  fiance  told  her  it  would 
be  a  reflection  on  himself  and  it  would  "break  his  heart" 
to  be  thus  distrusted.  Nevertheless  he  proved  himself 
faithless — in  mind,  morals  and  her  estate.  A  woman  can- 
not practice  law  in  Georgia  today,  no  matter  how  well 
prepared  by  study  and  genius.  There  are  scores  of  women 
doctors — but  our  legislators  draw  a  line  at  the  law. 

Before  the  war  her  only  chance  lay  in  her  foresight  in 
accepting  or  finding  for  herself  a  good  master.  I  have 
known  the  same  privilege  extended  to  favorite  slaves — 
who  were  forced  to  sale  for  legal  reasons.  There  were 
many,  I  trust,  very  many  men  of  good  character  and 
proper  self-respect,  who  did  not  push  legal  rights  to  the 
extent  of  the  law,  but  there  were  thousands  of  two-legged 
brutes  who  used  the  lash  on  short  notice.  The  prevalence 
of  wife  beating  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  coarse  man- 
ners and  insolent  behavior  of  their  own  male  progeny. 
As  I  understand  the  meaning  of  law,  it  is  to  provide 
against  what  an  evil  doer  is  apt  to  do,  but  our  ante-bellum 
Georgia  laws  furnished  the  opportunity  to  brutal  men  to 
exercise  their  right  as  masters  over  wives  as  well  as 
slaves.  What  is  known  as  chivalry  found  no  expression 
on  the  statute  books  of  Georgia  until  the  Civil  War  made 
changes.  It  exploited  itself  in  courting  days,  in  bowing 
and  scraping  in  public  company,  and  in  personal  encoun- 
ters, which  were  known  as  duels.  An  insult  called  for  a 
challenge,  and  then  pistols.  Nevertheless  the  law  of  Geor- 
gia allowed  any  sort  of  a  man  to  beat  his  wife,  provided 
the  switch  was  no  bigger  than  his  thumb.  Glance  down 
at  your  thumb,  my  dear  reader,  and  then  we  will  proceed 
a  little  further. 

In  the  homes  where  the  lash  was  used  the  sons  either 
despised  the  father  or  concluded  it  was  the  proper  way 
to  treat  women.    The  daughters,  afraid  and  disgusted,  took 

249 


chances,  hoping  to  do  better  in  selecting  kinder  masters 
than  their  mothers  had  done. 

Those  who  were  fortunate  were  contented  in  their  ig- 
norance. Those  who  felt  the  lash  were  helpless  before 
the  law  of  the  land. 

In  Georgia  before  the  war,  a  woman  might  teach  school 
as  a  genteel  profession — if  she  was  educated.  If  she  was 
illiterate  she  could  weave  or  sew,  if  her  rich  neighbors 
gave  her  such  work  to  do.  The  school  teacher  generally 
married  some  man  with  slaves  to  wait  on  her.  The  il- 
literate woman  went  to  the  kitchen  and  cornfield,  like  the 
slave  woman  of  the  big  plantations.  The  well-fed  negroes 
made   a  standing  joke   on   "po-white  trash." 

Constitutional  Convention  of  1868. 
This  convention  has  been  abused  without  mercy,  as  a 
radical  body,  controlled  by  scalawags  and  carpet-baggers, 
but  it  was  the  first  state  convention  in  Georgia  to  secure 
property  rights  to  women  who  were  married.  It  was  said 
to  be  a  selfish  proposition  because  the  vast  majority  of 
our  men  were  hopelessly  in  debt  when  the  war  closed. 
If  the  woman  could  claim  the  property,  then  there  would 
be  a  home,  a  living,  and  maintenance.  Otherwise  the 
dear  good  man  would  be  in  bondage  to  his  obligations.  It 
has  proved  to  be  a  popular  law  for  the  men  as  well  as  the 
women.  "Calico  pensioners"  are  still  plentiful.  And  if 
the  man  was  mean  and  cruel  he  could  make  his  wife  turn 
over  the  proceeds — and  if  he  was  suave  and  polite,  he 
could  borrow  and  forget  to  pay  back.  If  she  was  prosper- 
ous, he  was  more  so — and  he  is  still  amusing  himself  by 
putting  all  things  doubtful  in  "his  wife's  name."  And  the 
majority  of  these  "calico  pensioners"  are  almost  rabid 
maniacs  in  opposition  to  votes  for  women! 

Votes  for  Women — Some  Objections  as  Printed 
in    the    Papers. 

It  is  claimed  that  women  should  not  vote,  because  she 
does  not  pay  her  husband's  debts,  while  he  is  obliged  to 
pay  her  debts.  That  is  not  correct.  He  can  put  a  little 
"ad"  in  the  newspapers  and  nobody  will  give  her  credit 
who  sells  dry  goods  or  provisions.  Others  say  she  shirks 
jury  duty.  Georgia  women  have  not  had  any  jury  oppor- 
tunity. Again;  she  does  not  perform  military  duty.  I 
think  they  are  mistaken.  The  woman  provides  the  mate- 
rial out  of  which  soldiers  are  made  and  devotes  sixteen 
years  of  hard  toil  towards  their  raising.  Another  objects 
that  women  can  marry  men  younger  than  themselves — 
while  men  are  interdicted  in  like  matters.  As  the  woman 
is  always  to  be  chosen  and  not  the  chooser,  the  objection 
is  invalid.  Again,  a  man  cannot  say  "cuss  words"  on  the 
street,  in  presence  of  women.     Ninety-nine  times  out  of 

250 


a  hundred — the  foul-mouthed  man  will  say  a  hundred 
times  worse  things  in  presence  of  his  wife  and  daughter, 
and  nobody  cares  to  rebuke  him.  Again,  it  is  urged  tbat 
women  are  favored  as  to  hours  of  labor.  These  favors 
have  been  wrung  out  of  greed  and  indifference,  by  the 
votes  of  labor  organizations,  who  demanded  better  treat- 
ment to  wage-earning  girls  and  married  women — because 
of  injured  physical  conditions.  Being  poor  men  with  work- 
ing women  they  had  the  votes  and  said  so!  It  is  under- 
stood that  labor  organizations  are  almost  unanimous  for 
Woman  Suffrage,  because  they  understand  they  would 
themselves  be  at  the  mercy  of  their  employers  without  the 
ballot.  I  have  seen  white  women  on  their  all-fours,  scrub- 
bing the  halls  of  the  great  Department  in  Washington 
City,  thirty  years  ago,  and  nobody  protested  that  these 
child-bearing  women  were  out  of  their  sphere.  In  the  very 
shadow  of  the  Capitol  dome  and  in  the  very  offices  of  the 
great  leaders  in  political  and  social  economy  there  is  dis- 
crimination as  to  the  pay  of  men  and  women.  Equal 
work  fails  to  secure  equal  pay.  The  thing  that  is  lacking 
is  the  vote,  (compelling  attention)  and  equity,  (demanded 
at  the  ballot  box.). 

Is  the  Ballot  a  Right  or  a  Favor. 

It  is  an  erroneous  idea  that  has  been  actively  promul- 
gated for  a  purpose — that  women  have  no  claim  to  the 
ballot  privilege,  because  they  have  no  title  to  its  posses- 
sion. One  objector  says  the  ballot  is  a  franchise  and  a 
dispensation,  without  any  inherent  or  moral  or  legal  right, 
as  pertaining  to  women.  I  claim  that  they  were  born  into 
all  the  rights  that  are  the  property  of  their  brothers,  born 
of  the  same  parents  and  raised  in  the  same  home  and 
educated  in  the  same  way.  The  law  of  inheritance,  where 
parents  die  intestate,  gives  to  each  child,  regardless  of 
sex,  equal  shares  in  the  inherited  property,  and  when  the 
property  is  divided,  dollar  for  dollar,  the  daughters  own 
their  parts  as  legally  as  the  sons  own  their  parts,  but  the 
law  of  the  land  gives  to  the  males  liberty  to  say  how  and 
when  and  by  whom,  that  property  shall  be  taxed,  and 
denies  to  the  females  this  essential  and  inherent  right. 
The  right  to  own  property  is  allowed  to  every  person  in 
a  republican  form  of  government,  regardless  of  sex,  but 
the  right  to  say  how,  or  when,  or  by  whom  that  property 
is  to  be  taxed  is  denied  to  one  half  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  except  in  the  States  which  have  been  en- 
franchised by  the  good  sense  and  common  honesty  of  the 
men  of  those  States — after  due  consideration,  and  with  the 
chivalric  instinct  that  differentiates  the  coarse  brutal  male 
from  the  gentlemen  of  our  nation.  Shall  the  men  of  the 
South  be  less  generous,  less  chivalrous?  They  have  given 
the  Southern  women  more  praise  than  the  man  of  the 
West — but   judged   by   their   actions    Southern   men   have 

251 


been  less  sincere.  Honeyed  phrases  are  pleasant  to  listen 
to,  but  the  sensible  women  of  our  country  would  prefer 
more  substantial  gifts. 

For  instance  we  hear  a  great  deal  about  "witchery  in 
our  women."  It  is  a  honeyed  phrase,  but  I  remember  that 
Salem,  Mass.,  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  witchery  and 
women.  More  than  fifty  persons  were  burned  at  the  stake, 
hung  from  the  gallows  tree,  and  drowned  in  a  near-by 
pond.  And  every  one  was  a  woman  and  the  men  called 
them  "witches." 

So  long  as  women  were  denied  property  rights,  denied 
higher  education  and  kept  in  bondage  by  hickory  withes 
no  larger  than  a  man's  thumb — the  women  dared  not  ask 
for  more  than  liberty  to  live  and  to  bear  their  children 
in  quiet  homes,  but  with  education  and  property  rights  and 
the  ballot  conferred  on  all  negro  men,  who  are  not  idiots 
or  criminals,  Southern  women  are  not  willing  to  be  dis- 
franchised when  a  dozen  states  of  this  Union  have  con- 
ferred the  ballot  on  the  wives,  mothers  and  daughters  of 
that  section  of  our  country.  It  would  insult  the  average 
father,  who  delights  in  his  young  daughter  as  the  orna- 
ment and  the  joy  of  his  home,  to  tell  him  that  she  is  the 
inferior  of  his  son — that  she  is  incompetent  and  too  silly 
to  know  what  she  wishes  to  do  with  her  own  property — 
that  she  is  obliged  to  marry  some  man,  good,  bad  or  in- 
different to  fill  her  proper  sphere  in  life — that  her  place  is 
subjection,  because  of  her  sex — that  the  Bible  says,  "Sub- 
mit yourselves  to  your  husbands,"  and  that  it  means  en- 
dure, suffer,  forbear,  obey  and  have  no  opportunity  to  do 
anything  except  as  commanded  or  permited  by  a  husband 
who  can  take  her  children  from  her — take  her  property 
away  from  her — and  make  life  a  torment  to  her  with  his 
infidelities,  with  drunken  habits  and  horrid  example  for 
his  own  sons  and  daughters!  "Is  thy  servant  a  dog"  to 
accept  such  serfdom? 

It  is  said  that  women  are  represented  by  their  husbands 
at  the  ballot  box.  This  is  not  true;  of  the  ten  millions  of 
unmarried  women  who  have  nobody  to  vote  for  them, 
there  are  between  eight  and  nine  millions  of  unmarried 
men,  who  vote  for  nobody  but  themselves.  And  nobody 
votes  for  the  drunkard's  wife?  There  are  as  many  widows 
in  this  country  as  widowers.  As  a  rule  they  manage  well 
their  business  affairs  and  they  were  forced  to  learn  under 
difficulties.  They  deserve  the  ballot  because  their  prop- 
erty is  taxed  to  the  limit  and  beyond,  and  they  are  not 
allowed  to  protest.  Women  make  fine  teachers.  A  callow 
youth  can  vote  at  21,  while  his  capable  teacher,  if  a  woman, 
is  forbidden  to  vote.  Women  are  the  mainstays  in  public 
schools.  They  are  not  only  forbidden  the  vote,  but  their 
pay  is  reduced  because  of  their  sex.  They  make  superior 
stenographers,  but  while  pay  may  reach  fifty  dollars  a 
month  the  young  man  in  trousers  gets  from  seventy-five  to 

252 


a  hundred,  with  no  better  work — and  according  to  common 
report,  not  so  reliable  as  to  fidelity  and  regular  habits. 
The  more  I  think  about  these  inequalities  and  this  mani- 
fest injustice,  the  more  I  am  tempted  to  eulogize  the 
heathen,  who  lived  on  the  Ganges  river,  and  who  drowned 
the  girl  babies,  because  they  were  unfit  to  live! 

In  this  connection  I  desire  to  quote  a  significant  para- 
graph taken  from  General  T.  R.  R.  Cobb's  law  book,  en- 
titled: "Cobb  on  Slavery."  I  suppose  you  can  find  it  in 
our  State  library.  It  is  pertinent  because  our  Anti- 
Suffrage  men  and  women  are  continually  appealing  to  our 
law-makers  and  our  newspapers;  to  hark  back  to  slavery 
times — to  find  the  sort  of  laws  and  principles  that  should 
govern  us,  in  the  20th  Century.  We  are  often  called 
"traitors,"  if  we  disagree  with  the  arguments  that  were 
used  for  secession.  Says  General  Cobb,  "In  a  slave-holding 
State  the  greatest  evidence  of  wealth  in  the  planter  is  the 
number  of  his  slaves.  The  most  desirable  property  for 
a  remunerative  income  is  slaves.  The  best  property  to 
leave  his  children  and  from  which  they  will  part  with  the 
greatest  reluctance  is  slaves.  Hence  the  planter  invests 
his  surplus  income  in  slaves.  The  natural  result  is  the 
lands  are  a  secondary  consideration.  No  surplus  is  left  for 
their  improvement.  The  homestead  is  valued  only  so 
long  as  the  adjacent  lands  were  profitable  for  cultivation. 
The  planter,  himself,  having  no  local  attachments,  his 
children  inherit  none.  On  the  contrary,  he  encourages 
in  them  a  disposition  to  seek  new  lands.  The  valuable 
slave  property  he  can  easily  move  to  fresh  lands,  much 
more  easily  than  buying  fertilizers  to  improve  the  old. 
The  result  is,  as  a  class,  they  are  never  settled.  Such 
a  population  is  almost  nomadic.  It  is  useless  to  try  to 
excite  patriotic  emotion  in  the  land  of  your  birth,  where 
self  interest  speaks  so  loudly.  On  the  other  hand,  where 
no  slavery  exists  and  the  planter's  surplus  cannot  be  in- 
vested in  slaves,  it  is  appropriated  to  the  improvement 
or  extension  of  his  farms,  the  beautifying  of  his  home- 
stead, where  his  fathers  are  buried  and  where  he  hopes 
to  lie." 

General  Cobb  died  on  the  battlefield  of  Fredericksburg. 
He  did  not  live  to  see  the  end.  It  was  "property  rights 
in  slaves"  that  forced  on  the  War  of  Secession.  It  is 
now  called  "State's  rights"  but  it  was  the  desire  of  slave 
owners  to  protect  their  rights  to  slave  ownership — and 
their  determination  to  carry  their  slaves  to  richer  lands 
in  newer  States — like  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  that  made 
the  bloody  war  of  the  Sixties.  I  can  speak  of  this  matter 
without  embarassment.  My  Maryland  forefathers  were 
large  slave  owners — as  far  back  as  1640.  All  of  my  family 
on  both  sides — paternal  and  maternal — were  slave  owners. 
The  bulk  of  my  own  marriage  portion  was  in  slaves.  My 
husband  was  a  large  slave  owner,  when  I  was  married. 

253 


But  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  in  this  presence,  that  slavery 
was  a  curse  to  the  South — that  the  time  had  come  in  the 
providence  of  God  to  give  every  human  being  a  chance 
for  liberty  and  I  would  as  soon'hark  back  to  a  charnel 
house  for  healthy  inspiration  as  to  try  to  find  rules  and 
regulations,  drawn  from  the  fetid  atmosphere  that  pre- 
vailed in  the  madness  of  the  early  sixties.  No  excuse 
or  apology  will  disturb  the  inevitable  verdict  of  history 
and  the  doctrine  of  State's  Rights  as  applied  to  the  legis- 
lation of  secession  days,  is  like  Dead  Sea  fruit  that  lapses 
in  ashes! 

An  address  made  by  President  Wilson  to  the  Daughters 
of  the  American  Revolution  at  the  opening  of  their  late 
Congress,  held  in  Washington  City,  makes  my  meaning 
plain,  in  this  connection.  The  address  was  made  on 
April  19,  1915.  "There  is  no  dignity  in  a  tradition  which 
has  lost  its  practical  energy,  and  our  only  interest  in  tra- 
ditions is  that  they  should  bear  fruitage  in  the  present  and 
richer  fruitage  in  the  future.  I  take  it  for  granted  that  it 
is  not  your  thought  to  create  an  exclusive  company  of 
those  whose  recollections  run  back  to  that  great  (Inde- 
pendence) day,  but  that  your  thought  is  also  of  the  con- 
stant rebirth  of  the  nation.  In  a  peculiar  degree  the 
United  States  seems  to  be  reborn  from  generation  to  gene- 
ration, because  renewed  out  of  all  the  sources  of 
human  energy  in  the  world.  Therefore  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  object  of  traditions  such  as  this  society 
cherishes  and  means  to  assist  in  perpetuating  is  to  show 
us  the  basis  of  the  principle  upon  which  we  shall  keep 
our  pose.  We  are  not  interested  in  the  politics  of  Govern- 
ment for  their  own  sake.  We  are  interested  in  the  United 
States,  politically  speaking,  in  nothing  but  human  liberty." 
In  my  old  age,  after  long  experience  with  parties  and  poli- 
ticians, I  echo  these  words  of  wisdom.  We  are  only  in- 
terested in  human  liberty.  Let  the  dead  past  bury  its 
dead!  It  would  be  most  unfortunate  if  we  cannot  ever 
divert  ourselves  of  this  eternal  slavery  question — because 
of  dead  traditions.  It  has  "no  dignity"  in  this  country, 
and  it  is  painful  to  know  that  our  Southern  politicians 
have  no  greater  rallying  cry  than  "State's  Rights,"  as  ex- 
ploited in  Secession.  They  use  and  abuse  State  Rights — 
in  prohibition — also  on  the  woman  question.  They  do  not 
appear  to  understond  that  their  use  on  one  question  is 
completely  nullified  by  their  abuse  on  the  other  question 
in  voting. 

Some  years  ago,  in  1901,  I  was  invited  by  the  Legislature 
to  address  the  members  of  House  and  Senate  in  joint 
session  on  the  "Infirmities  of  our  Public  School  System." 
I  was  placed  on  the  Speaker's  rostrum,  with  Governor 
Allen  Candler  on  my  lift  and  President  Howell  on  my  right. 
The  hall  was  packed — floor  and  gallery.  Crowds  stood 
because  there  were  no  vacant  seats.     After  I  came  home 

254 


Governor  Candler  wrote  me  a  long  and  approving  letter. 
As  it  bears  directly  on  the  present  subject,  I  will  copy 
a  few  lines  at  this  time.  "The  truth  is,  Mrs.  Felton,  we 
started  wrong  in  1865.  We  had  been  overpowered  by  our 
Northern  invaders.  The  flower  of  our  manhood  had  per- 
ished in  battle.  Those  of  our  population  who  had  sur- 
vived the  conflct  and  returned  to  their  ruined  homes  were 
disarmed  and  put  on  parole.  The  fanatics  whom  the  for- 
tunes of  war  had  enthroned  in  Washington  first  demanded 
that  we  repudiate  our  war  debt.  We  did  it.  Secondly 
we  were  ordered  to  emancipate  our  slaves,  and  we  did  it. 
Thirdly  they  demanded  that  we  arm  them  with  the  ballot 
to  protect  them  in  their  newly  acquired  freedom,  and  we  did 
it.  Then  they  said  we  must  educate  them  to  make  good 
citizens  out  of  them  and  for  thirty  years  we  have  been 
taxing  ourselves  almost  to  the  verge  of  confiscation  to  fit 
them  for  citizenship  and  we  have  failed.  Education  has 
no  more  effect  on  them  morally  and  intellectually  than  it 
has  physically.  God  made  them  negroes  and  we  cannot 
make  them  white  folks  by  education.  We  are  on  the 
wrong  track.  We  must  turn  back.  We  must  limit  suffrage 
to  virtue  and  intelligence.  The  tax  payers  are  in  the 
minority  and  in  almost  every  country  there  is  an  unreli- 
able and  irresponsible  vote  which  constitutes  the  balance 
of  power  and  the  law  makers  consult  this  class,  rather 
than  the  interest  of  those  who  sit  on  juries — who  pay  the 
taxes — fight  the  battles  and  bear  the  burthens  of  Gov- 
ernment." In  this  connection  I  will  inquire  where  can 
you  find  this  virtue  and  intelligence  unless  your  wives, 
mothers,  sisters  and  daughters  come  to  your  relief? 

If  Women  Do  Not  Want  to  Vote — No  Objection. 

It  is  a  stock  argument  with  our  anti-suffrage  friends  that 
women  do  not  care  to  vote,  will  not  vote,  etc.,  etc.  This 
can  only  be  proven  when  the  test  is  applied.  There  are 
those  who  say  they  have  all  the  rights  they  want — have 
never  needed  better  laws  than  we  have  had  in  Georgia 
since  it  was  a  colony,  etc.  Such  arguments  were  presented 
to  the  Legislature  last  summer  by  highly  educated  Georgia 
ladies.  To  these  I  can  only  say  if  they  prefer  to  hug  their 
chains,  I  have  no  sort  of  objection.  If  they  accept  the 
position  of  inferiority,  why  try  to  impress  them  with  re- 
peated arguments  against  serfdom  in  mind,  body  or  estate? 
If  they  choose  to  be  parasites,  of  course  they  can  be  such. 
If  they  can  afford  to  lower  their  own  claims  below  idiots, 
the  insane  and  the  criminal  classes  and  are  content  to 
allow  negro  men  superior  voting  privileges  to  themselves 
why  disturb  their  stagnant  equilibrium?  I  make  no  appeal 
to  that  class  of  our  women.  At  that  very  time  when  these 
distinguished  Georgia  women  were  assuring  our  legisla- 
tors that  Georgia  women  had  all  they  needed — all  they 
were   entitled   to,   and   more,   there  were   anxious   Georgia 

255 


women  who  were  pleading  for  a  more  humane  age  of  con- 
sent, as  Georgia  has  adopted  ten  years — lower  than  any 
other  state  or  territory  or  dependency,  except  Hawaii,  on 
this  continent.  A  little  ten  year  old  child  is  considered 
sufficiently  able  to  protect  her  virtue  from  the  wiles  of 
the  libertine  and  the  debasing  lures  of  a  procuress!  Time 
and  time  again  have  these  faithful  women  appealed  to  a 
stubborn  Legislature  to  alter  those  figures,  to  no  effect. 
At  that  very  time  we  were  imploring  the  Legislature  to 
allow  qualified  women  to  practice  law  in  Georgia,  without 
effect.  At  that  very  time,  patriotic  women  were  appealing 
for  a  law  to  keep  small  children  away  from  cotton  fac- 
tories where  their  no-account  daddies  were  using  the 
money  they  earned:  in  soft  drinks,  cigarettes  and  other 
indulgences  and  doing  nothing  for  themselves.  At  that 
very  time  these  patriotic  women  were  pleading  for  equal 
pay  for  equal  work — for  women.  At  that  very  time,  they 
were  asking  that  bigamists  should  receive  their  deserts. 
At  that  very  time,  they  were  pleading  for  a  law  to  give 
the  woman  equal  partneship  with  her  husband  in  her  own 
children.  At  that  very  time  women  were  giving  time, 
strength  and  constant  attendance,  hoping  that  our  legis- 
lators would  revise  ways  and  means  to  perfect  our  State- 
wide prohibition  law.  At  that  very  time  Atlanta  was  in  a 
perfect  turmoil  and  the  "Men  and  Religion"  movement 
was  thundering  in  the  daily  papers  about  vice  conditions 
in  the  shadow  of  the  dome  of  the  Capitol  of  Georgia!  (Of 
all  the  helpless  things  under  the  shining  sun  in  the  Com- 
monwealth of  Georgia,  it  is  a  poor,  unfortunate  girl,  with- 
out money  and  without  work — when  her  seducer  walks 
the  streets  with  head  up  and  no  hindrance!)  And  to  no 
effect! 

Nero  fiddled  while  Rome  was  burning!  — 
Satisfied  with  high  position  in  women's  organizations, 
to  which  they  had  themselves  been  chosen,  by  the  votes 
of  their  own  colleagues,  they  were  manifestly  ignorant  of 
their  own  sex  in  matters  that  actually  took  hold  on  life 
and  death.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  many  patriotic  efforts 
were  repelled  by  such  lack  of  sympathy  and  non-apprecia- 
tion of  patriotic  women  who  were  pleading  for  relief  under 
difficulties — in  behalf  of  those  women  who  were  poor  and 
unfortunate  and  helpless.  It  was  to  be  expected  that  com- 
mon, coarse  men  should  vote  "no."  They  had  been  doubt- 
less raised  when  the  rule  of  the  rod  no  bigger  than  a 
man's  thumb  prevailed,  and  breeding  will  tell,  in  humans 
as  well  as  in  cattle! 

The  Serious  Mistake. 
When  we  consider  how  many  men  have  become  tyrants 
and  oppressors  because  of  the  brute  idea  that  women  were 
only  made  for  man's  use,  and  abuse,  the  breath  and  depth 

256 


of  human  misery  that  has  been  going  on  and  is  daily 
caused  by  this  one  mistake  in  our  dealings  with  the  sexes, 
is  most  appalling.  Marriage  between  a  master  and  a  slave 
was  obliged  to  be  debasing  to  both.  Marriage  in  its  true 
meaning  rests  upon  absolute  equality  between  the  sexes 
as  to  rights  and  privileges — legal,  political  and  social. 
Marriage  has  an  exalted  meaning  for  those  who  have  clear 
vision  on  this  line.  The  hope  for  the  regeneration  of  man- 
kind is  dependent  upon  a  community  of  interest  in  all 
things  material,  as  well  as  affection  in  matrimony.  Mar- 
riage is  a  partnership,  and  the  children  are  blessed,  when 
the  father  accords  to  the  mother  every  right  that  he 
claims  for  himself,  with  honest  dealing  and  mutual  respect 
from  both  partners.  The  family  in  its  best  form  is  a 
school  for  mutual  tenderness,  mutual  sympathy,  self-sacri- 
fice, forgetfulness  of  self,  and  four-square  dealing  as  to 
benefits  and  obligations.  Honorable  marriage  is  the  only 
conservator  of  National  health  and  of  National  prosperity! 
Years  ago  Dr.  Powell,  then  at  the  head  of  the  State 
Sanitarium,  told  me  that  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  in- 
sane women  came  from  the  poor  farms  in  Georgia.  Like 
dumb-driven  cattle,  the  brain  broke  down.  The  treadmill 
of  all  hard  work  and  no  recreation  wore  out  body  and  soul! 
The  delicately  pampered  females  in  modern  Paris  and 
New  York  dwindle  to  decay  as  did  they  of  old  Rome.  The 
poor,  illiterate  woman  and  the  idle  parasite  woman  amount 
to  less  than  nothing.  One  is  crushed  with  her  burden,  and 
the  other  is  only  a  butterfly  of  fashion.  One  great  defect 
in  both  cases  lies  in  the  lack  of  co-operation  in  their 
homes.  They  have  had  no  preparation  for  life  and  its 
realities.  Of  course  these  women  have  had  no  experience 
in  governmental  affairs — would  be  ciphers  everywhere. 
But  they  are  not  alone.  There  are  tens  of  thousands  of 
men  in  this  country  who  know  as  little,  after  having  the 
ballot  privilege  since  they  were  twenty-one  years  og  age. 
The  mire  of  politics  has  been  too  much  for  them.  As  Gov- 
ernor Candler  truly  said,  they  are  totally  unreliable  and 
irresponsible.  Why  should  such  men  dictate  laws  to  edu- 
cated, high-toned  and  capable  women? 

A  Word  to  Men  Concerning  Their  Mothers. 

Whatever  you  may  have  lacked  in  life,  you  surely  have 
had  a  mother.  The  great  majority  of  men  are  willing  to 
accord  decent  respect  to  these  authors  of  their  being — 
but  there  is  also  a  large  class  which  has  no  respect  for 
any  woman.  It  is  well  to  remind  those  who  sneer  and  jeer, 
that  every  mother's  son  of  them  owes  his  social  status  to 
his  mother.  It  is  the  rule  in  royal  houses  of  Europe.  A 
morganatic  wife  could  not  give  heirs  to  the  great  king- 
doms or  empires  of  modern  Europe  today.  The  mother 
must  have  the  blood  of  kings  and  emperors  in  her  own 

257 


veins  to  mother  the  crown  princes  of  the  old  world.  In 
the  time  of  slavery  in  the  United  States,  slave  mothers 
always  made  slave  children.  A  white  father  did  not  give 
freedom  to  the  slave  woman's  child — but  the  degenerate 
white  woman  who  sunk  herself  below  the  pity  of  her  sex, 
and  outlawed  herself  beyond  recovery,  she  gave  them 
freedom,  no  matter  how  dark  complexioned.  It  was  the 
law  before  the  war — they  obtained  freedom  through  the 
blood  of  the  white  mother.  On  the  other  hand  the  degen- 
erate white  man  willing  to  put  his  offspring  in  the  kitchen 
and  corn  field,  and  speculators  bought  and  sold  them  on 
the  block,  the  overseer's  lash  drove  them  while  the  stars 
were  shining  before  day,  and  while  the  stars  were  shining 
after  dark,  and  the  law  of  the  land  said  "slaves,"  because 
the  mother  was  a  slave.  Some  few  slaves  were  emanci- 
pated by  their  owners,  for  various  reasons,  but  the  free- 
born,  Afro-American  came  to  his  freedom  by  the  white 
blood  of  his  mother. 

Freedom  belongs  to  the  white  woman  as  her  inherent 
right.  Whatever  belongs  to  the  freedom  of  these  United 
States  belongs  to  the  white  woman.  Her  Anglo-Saxon 
forefathers,  fleeing  from  English  tynanny  won  this  coun- 
try from  savage  tribes  and  again  from  English  bayonets, 
by  the  expenditure  of  blood  and  treasure.  Whatever  was 
won  by  these  noble  men  of  the  Revolution  was  inherited 
alike  by  sons  and  daughters.  Firty  years  from  now  this 
country  will  hold  up  hands  in  holy  horror  that  deadly  in- 
toxicants were  ever  sold  to  debauch  men  and  women,  and 
also  that  any  man  or  set  of  men  in  America  should  assume 
to  themselves  the  authority  to  deny  to  free-born  white 
women  of  America  the  ballot,  which  is  the  badge  and  sy- 
nonym of  freedom! 

Lame    Excuses. 

We  are  told  that  women  will  vote  as  men  do — vote  their 
prejudices  and  go  off  half-cocked  in  election  matters.  The 
first  thing  the  women  of  California  did  was  to  vote  out 
saloons  as  election  booths  and  put  the  ballot  boxes  in 
clean  school  houses.  One  was  owned  by  the  liquor  traffic 
and  the  other  by  the  State.  And  we  are  told  that  white 
women  might  vote,  but  what  about  negro  cooks?  As  our 
men  in  Georgia  have  paddled  down  the  voting  stream  for 
nearly  a  half  century,  with  negro  men  cooks  and  barbers, 
etc.,  we  will  not  cross  that  bridge  before  we  come  to  it. 
They  tell  us  that  the  women  of  the  underworld  would 
crowd  the  polls.  The  authorities  will  tell  you  that  every 
voter  must  register  in  their  own  names,  with  place  of  resi- 
dence, and  this  they  never  do,  if  it  can  be  helped.  A  few 
women  like  Mrs.  Russell  Sage,  Mrs.  Harriman  and  Mrs. 
Hetty  Green  own  one-third  of  the  wealth  of  this  country. 
Their  chauffeurs  and  negro  butlers  can  vote,  while  they 
are  denied  the  ballot. 

258 


You  have  known  some  men  who  never  could  have 
reached  Congress  except  through  bad  men's  votes.  Lori- 
mer,  the  Republican,  went  to  the  Senate  by  bribing  Demo- 
cratic legislators  in  Illinois.  Roberts,  of  Indiana,  has  gone 
to  the  State  prison,  after  being  a  Democratic  candidate 
for  Governor,  because  he  bought  and  sold  votes  in  Indian- 
apolis. Women  could  not  possibly  do  worse  than  that! 
Statistics  tell  us  that  there  are  thirty  men  criminals  to 
one  woman  criminal,  and  there  are  as  many  women  as 
men  in  this  country.  It  is  said  that  women  are  keen  after 
the  offices.  I  am  not  posted  on  that  part  of  it,  but  the  very 
idea  of  opposition  to  the  chronic  office  seeker  will  send 
cold   chills   down   his   spine   and   make   his   teeth   chatter. 

I  have  heard  stalwart  men  complaining  that  women 
stenographers  were  robbing  men  of  their  own  employment. 
I  thought  there  was  still  plenty  of  out-doors  for  the  com- 
plainant, where  he  could  improve  his  muscle  as  well  as  his 
temper.  If  women  must  stay  in  the  home,  the  man  should 
exercise  abroad.  I  would  like  to  print  a  list  of  great 
Queens,  like  Victoria  and  Tsi  Ann  of  China,  of  great 
astronomers,  great  singers,  great  novelists,  great  teachers, 
great  leaders  in  philanthropy  like  Francis  Willard — all 
women;  but  my  space  forbids.  I  will  mention  modest 
Queen  Wilhelmina  of  Holland,  who  sits  steady  in  the  boat 
while  Kings  and  Emperors  are  fairly  bursting  with  blood- 
thirsty rage  against  their  opponents.  She  is  the  only 
woman  ruler  in  Europe,  and  apparently  has  more  self- 
control  than  any  of  them  under  most  embarrassing  condi- 
tions. If  women  can  make  good  queens,  they  might  be 
tolerated  as  plain  voters  in  a  republic. 

New  Men  as  Well  as  New  Women. 

The  "New  Woman"  is  often  criticised.  The  term  is 
never  applied  as  a  compliment,  but  there  also  is  the  "New 
Man"  to  be  reckoned  with.  This  New  Man  has  given  the 
ballot  privilege  in  extenso  to  between  five  and  six  millions 
of  voting  women.  They  are  giving  a  partial  ballot  in  a 
dozen  other  States.  These  States  are  fast  coming  into  full 
enfranchisement.  Today,  in  a  presidential  primary,  these 
voting  women  will  hold  the  balance  of  power.  And  we, 
who  claim  the  vote  as  our  right;  inherent — moral  and 
legal  right,  are  as  proud  to  be  the  daughters  of  our  fathers, 
as  the  daughters  of  our  mothers.  We  belong  to  a  woman- 
hood like  our  mothers  did,  which  was  never  bought  and 
sold  for  a  European  title,  or  made  a  millionaire's  plaything 
to  be  treated  like  a  pet  cat — fed  on  cream  and  purr  in 
idleness.  We  come  of  a  race  who  shirked  no  danger,  nor 
cowered  in  fear.  These  women  of  our  blood  stood  side 
by  side  with  their  mates  when  it  was  considered  treason 
to  the  King  to  sign  the  oath  of  Allegiance  to  Independance 
in  1776-78.     It  can  never  be   dishonorable  to  unfurl  the 

259 


banner  of  freedom  in  a  free  country,  but  it  will  be  the 
New  Man  who  will  give  the  ballot  to  his  mother,  his  wife, 
his  sister  and  his  daughter.  He  has  had  clear  vision  in 
the  great  West.  The  Star  of  Empire  is  turned,  and  lead- 
ing to  the  East.  He  knows  that  the  elevation  of  women 
has  given  vitality  and  strength  to  mankind.  "He  knows 
that  the  standard  of  mothers  is  the  final  standard  of  all 
races  of  men.  He  knows  as  the  mother's  brain  weakens, 
the  brain  of  her  son  weakens;  as  her  muscles  soften,  his 
child's  muscles  soften;  as  she  decays,  the  people  decay  in 
every  station  in  life.  The  parasitism  of  child-bearing 
women  has  always  weakened  the  race.  The  mother  of  his 
children  must  be  given  the  best,  that  she  may  do  her  best. 
While  he  knows  there  are  women  who  are  more  selfish 
than  patriotic,  more  indifferent  to  the  duty  of  child-bearing 
than  to  society  fribbles,  and  there  are  those  "who  prefer 
like  Helen  of  Troy  to  be  passed  along  from  man  to  man, 
and  wno  will,  iTke  Cleopatra,  entice  great  men  to  their 
overthrow,"  yet  he  also  knows  that  the  coming  mothers 
of  the  United  States  must  be  prepared  to  understand  the 
principles  of  government,  to  meet  the  exigencies  that 
doubtful  conditions  are  forcing  upon  the  country.  He 
knows  that  he  can  trust  the  wife  of  his  bosom  with  the 
nearest  and  dearest  interests  of  his  existence.  The  call  of 
the  age  is  for  wise  and  capable  women,  and  the  New  Man 
understands  that  his  mate  must  be  his  comrade  and  like- 
wise his  friend  in  every  emergency. 

This  woman's  movement  is  a  great  movement  of  the 
sexes  toward  each  other,  with  common  ideals  as  to  govern- 
ment, as  well  as  common  ideals  in  domestic  life,  where 
fully  developed  manhood  must  seek  and  find  its  real  mate 
in  the  mother  of  his  children,  as  well  as  the  solace  of  his 
home.  "The  time  has  long  passed  since  the  hard-drinking, 
fox-hunting,  high-playing  country  squire  was  excused  be- 
cause of  his  generosity  and  hospitality."  He  was  not  the 
equal  of  his  sober  mate,  whose  'hand  held  the  distaff,  who 
made  good  cheer  from  kitchen  to  drawing-room.  The  call 
of  the  age  is  for  partnership  in  the  family,  in  the  church, 
in  the  State  and  National  affairs,  between  men  and 
women. 

The  brothel,  the  gaming  table,  the  race  course  and 
habits  of  physical  excess  are  still  with  us,  but  the  hope 
of  this  Nation  lies  in  the  broad-minded  men  who  boldly 
acclaim  woman's  success  in  every  field  of  literature, 
science,  music,  art,  in  the  organized  professions,  and  great 
national  philanthropies.  These  are  the  men  to  whom  we 
look  for  the  early  recognition  of  women  everywhere,  in 
the  everyday  duties,  with  everyday  experience,  and  mutual 
acquaintance   with   the   various    problems   of   government. 

Cartersville,  Ga.,  May  14,  1915. 

260 


MY  PET. 


When  a  young  friend  of  mine  gave  me  a  small  puppy 
during  one  of  Rev.  Sam  Jones'  tabernacle  meetings  I  had 
no  thought  of  the  treasure  that  surely  came  to  me  by  this 
happy  presentation  thus  named. 

He  was  a  little  fat,  roly-poly  sort  of  fellow — always 
greedy  for  sweet  milk  and  always  in  a  wiggle  when  he 
could  take  the  time  from  his  frequent  scratchings — to  per- 
form the  wiggle.  But  Sam  soon  left  the  infantile  baby 
stage  and  began  to  develop  into  what  he  afterwards  be- 
came— the  handsomest  Scotch  collie  my  eyes  ever  beheld. 

He  is  a  perfect  picture  of  what  a  perfect  dog  can  be — 
of  his  species. 

If  I  was  an  artist  I  would  make  his  picture  for  you,  but 
I  can  only  describe  his  looks  as  best  I  can  and  leave  the 
rest  to  your  imagination. 

As  he  lies  before  me,  while  I  am  writing  this  notice  of 
him,  he  is  a  model  for  Rosa  Bonheur,  or  any  other  animal 
painter  or  artist. 

He  is  large  in  size,  well-developed  for  strength  and  grace 
in  every  particular.  His  hair  appears  to  be  black  until  the 
strong  wind  parts  his  silken  coat,  then  you  find  it  shades 
into  a  clear,  rich  tan,  with  white  trimmings.  The  hair  is 
thick  and  inclines  to  curl.  He  has  a  royal  Elizabethan 
white  ruff  around  his  neck,  wears  a  snowy  vest,  white 
stockings,  and  the  end  of  his  thick,  plumy  tail  has  six 
inches  of  soft,  waving  white  hair  that  gives  it  a  superb 
finish  and  loveliness. 

His  small  face,  with  its  white  oblong  star,  is  illuminated 
with  the  softest  and  clearest  of  brown  eyes,  that  seem 
human  in  expression  when  he  looks  in  your  face  as  if 
to  tell  you  how  much  he  loves  you. 

But  his  beauty,  strength  and  activity  are  not  his  chief 
attractions,  although  all  these  are  excellent  for  their  supe- 
riority, as  before  said,  and  again  emphasized.  His  crowning 
excellence  is  his  true  loyalty  and  generous  devotion  to 
those  he  loves.  He  never  fails  to  be  vigilant,  never  omits 
a  single  phase  of  his  duty  as  he  understands  it,  and  has 
never  to  be  coaxed  to  do  anything,  for  he  is  constantly 
alert  and  always  up  to  the  mark  in  his  business. 

His  loyalty  is  so  perfect  that  it  knows  no  variableness 
or  shadow  of  turning.  Night  or  day,  he  is  ready  with  a 
joyful  welcome  when  I  enter  our  gate,  and  it  is  many  the 
dress  that  his  eager  feet  has  soiled  in  the  warmth  of  his 
greeting  and  profuseness  of  his  welcome. 

If  strangers  are  in  the  house  Sam  never  loses  sight  of 
me,  and  if  their  conversation  is  loud  or  emphatic  Sam 
will  not  leave  my  side.  If  I  walk  in  the  yard  he  follows 
at  a  respectful  distance,  but  if  I  am  accosted  by  a  strange 
voice  he  is  instantly  within  touch  of  me.     When  I  super- 

261 


intend  outdoor  work  he  keeps  near  me,  as  a  protector,  and 
if  I  ride  on  horseback  in  the  fields  he  leads  the  way  and 
hovers  about  me,  without  regard  for  his  own  amusement  or 
recreation. 

If  we  come  to  a  fork  in  the  road  he  stands  at  the  parting 
of  the  way  until  Gipsy's  head  is  inclined  to  the  right  road; 
then  Sam  gives  a  joyful  bark  and  on  we  go — the  brave  dog 
intent  on  my  pleasure  and  protection. 

Instant  to  obey,  he  is  always  ready,  always  more  than 
willing,  never  to  be  urged,  never  to  be  scolded,  excpt  for 
overdoing.  My  dog,  Sam,  is  the  finest  specimen  of  duty 
well  performed  that  I  ever  knew  in  man  or  beast. 

He  has  a  comrade — Dick — another  thoroughbred  Scotch 
collie,  of  a  different  strain,  and  a  good  enough  dog  if  he 
was  not  always  eclipsed  by  Sam,  the  glorious  none-such. 

Sam  is  very  kind  to  Dick  in  a  way,  but  if  Dick  gets  a 
thrashing  from  his  owners  Sam  immediately  proceeds  to 
give  him  another  to  make  him  better. 

Dick  loves  to  sleep;  has  to  be  called;  has  to  be  "set  on," 
but  Sam  is  like  a  sensitive  plant,  he  is  so  easy  impressed 
and  so  vigilant,  both  by  day  and  night.  Dick  is  devoted 
to  my  saddle  mare — lies  by  the  saddle  night  and  day  and 
is  like  a  bright,  well-oiled  machine  when  he  is  once 
aroused  and  started,  but  Sam  loves  Gipsy  because  his  mis- 
tress rides  her;  he  caresses  her  to  keep  her  up  to  her 
duty,  and  as  soon  as  we  get  home  he  leaves  the  saddle 
to  Dick's  care  and  betakes  himself  to  the  care  of  his  mis- 
tress, as  usual. 

When  we  cross  streams  of  water  in  our  frequent  outings 
Sam  runs  ahead  to  enjoy  a  plunge  bath  and  I  am  happy 
to  watch  his  pleasure.  Again  and  again  he  dives  until 
Gipsy  passes  on,  when  he  forsakes  his  greatest  fun  to  be 
ready  to  accompany  me  homeward.  When  Gipsy  drinks 
at  the  branch  Sam  takes  his  drink  also,  just  as  near  to  her 
mouth  as  the  highbred,  disdainful  steed  will  allow  him. 
Sometimes  she  snorts  and  refuses  to  partake  with  her 
small  companion;  then  Sam  patiently  waits  her  pleasure, 
but  generally  contrives  to  have  his  way,  which  I  verily 
believe  he  is  moved  to  do  because  he  never  relaxes  his 
watchful  care  for  the  beloved  rider.  His  desire  to  have 
his  thirst  slaked,  where  the  water  is  sweetened  by  the 
mare's  breath,  very  much  resembles  an  intention  to  keep 
a  lynx-eyed  surveillance  on  her  movements,  for  certain  it 
is  that  she  may  drink  fifty  times  a  day  in  the  house  lot 
branch  without  any  such  demonstration,  on  his  part,  when 
she  is  riderless  and  unbridled. 

Sam  belongs  to  a  distinguished  ancestry.  His  grand- 
parents were  imported  at  a  cost  of  $300  to  the  Canadian 
purchaser. 

Sam's  sire  is  said  to  have  been  also  an  uncommon  dog — 
for  beauty  and  sagacity. 

262 


Whatever  the  best  of  them  may  have  been  none  could 
be  superior  to  my  dear  pet,  now  advancing  into  the  sixth 
year  of  his  age,  growing  better  and  more  cherished  with 
each  succeeding  year  of  his  life. 

Sam  is  unlike  a  dog  in  his  great  fear  of  thunder  and 
lightning.  He  crouches  under  the  bed  or  shelters  his  head 
under  his  mistress'  apron  while  the  storm  lasts.  Time 
and  again  has  he  crept  to  my  bedside  to  touch  my  hand 
with  his  cold  nose  as  he  trembled  and  panted  in  an  agony 
of  fear.  When  efforts  are  made  to  drive  him  out  his  dis- 
tress is  pitiable,  for  he  will  fall  on  his  knees  and  take  the 
rod  without  flinching  to  be  allowed  human  company  while 
the  storm  rages. 

He  knows  when  you  talk  about  him.  Often  I  make  a 
test  of  this  surprising  faculty,  Some  days  ago  as  I  sat  in 
my  room  I  heard  a  mule  pawing  at  the  barn  door.  I  re- 
marked as  I  looked  through  the  open  window,  "Old  Tom 
is  sure  to  break  down  that  door  if  he  is  not  driven  away." 

Quick  as  thought  Sam  darted  from  the  room,  ran  to  the 
lot  and  singled  old  Tom  out  of  a  dozen  horses  and  mules 
for  a  furious  barking  and  pursuit. 

If  I  narrate  his  smart  deeds  on  my  return  from  a  ride 
he  wags  his  tail  with  regular  beats  on  the  floor  so  long 
as  he  is  the  topic  of  conversation — perhaps  to  verify  what 
ir  being  said  of  him. 

Dick  might  raise  his  head  to  hear  his  own  name  called, 
but  he  shows  nothing  of  Sam's  wide-awake  and  astonish- 
ing comprehension  when  his  conduct  is  discussed  or  com- 
mented upon. 

If  his  master  chances  to  forget  to  feed  him,  which  rarely 
happens,  Sam  makes  it  known,  not  in  words,  but  with  as 
much  certainly  as  if  he  had  the  gift  of  speech.  He  does 
not  loiter  outside  looking  for  the  missing  meal,  but  he  gets 
around  and  before  you,  no  matter  where  you  go  or  what 
you  are  doing  until  you  are  made  aware  of  his  wishes  and 
of  your  neglect. 

When  I  share  tidbits  with  him  he  does  not  jump  and 
clamor  for  them,  but  holds  his  head  reverently  near  the 
hearth  until  the  coveted  morsel  is  placed  before  him. 

Take  him  as  you  find  him,  everywhere,  he  is  the  nearest 
all-round  dog  that  I  can  ever  hope  to  see.  If  he  had  been 
trained  to  herd  flocks  he  could  have  been  taught  per- 
fectly, but  in  default  of  sheep  and  herds  of  cattle  his  gift 
has  shown  itself  in  his  unequaled  care  of  his  own  white 
folks.  He  is  not  particularly  averse  to  colored  people — not 
belligerent  or  ill-tempered,  but  he  passes  them  by  with  a 
hasty  glance  unless  they  are  trespassing,  but  of  his  own 
dear  ones — the  trio  that  he  loves  to  devotion — he  never 
wearies  or  ceases  to  appreciate.  There  is  no  picture  of 
contentment  that  I  have  ever  seen  which  will  compare 
with  his  plainly  expressed  satisfaction  as  he  sits  in  front 
of   our   little   family,   to   be    stroked   alternately   by   each 

263 


loving  hand  as  he  turns  from  one  to  another  for  the  kind 
attention.  When  he  walks  beside  us — every  fiber  of  his 
active  frame  thrilling  with  delight  and  happiness — I  never 
saw  greater  physical  beauty  in  any  creature  that  could 
not  speak.  He  carries  himself  at  such  times  with  royal 
grace  from  the  beautiful  head  to  the  curving  tail  that 
moves  and  glistens  with  its  silken  shaded  plumage,  until 
he  spies  an  intruder,  when  his  majectic  dignity  subsides 
into  fleet  action  with  swift  pursuit  and  encounter — for 
he  is  a  very  Julius  Caesar  for  courage. 

He  is  as  sensitive  to  rebuke  as  a  tender-hearted  child, 
and  I  verily  believe  unkindness  would  break  his  noble 
heart.  Some  years  ago  he  attempted  to  hold  a  fat  porker 
while  an  awkward  lout  knocked  the  hog  senseless  with  an 
ax,  but  the  blow  fell  on  Sam's  forehead,  laying  it  bare  to 
the  bone. 

The  red  blood  spouted  and  the  poor  doggie  suffered 
with  violent  pain.  Again  and  again  we  stanched  the  flow, 
but  he  rubbed  the  wound  open,  as  often  with  his  feet.  It 
was  thought  necessary  to  chain  him  to  save  his  life,  but 
we  despaired  when  he  refused  both  food  and  water  and 
became  listless  and  unresponsive.  I  watched  all  day  and 
had  given  him  up  at  bedtime,  for  he  lay  prone  and 
limp  on  the  back  veranda  in  the  darkness.  I  could  not 
sleep  ,  and  when  midnight  came  I  rose  and  carried  the 
wounded  pet  a  basin  of  fresh  water  with  the  same  result. 
Suddenly  it  dawned  upon  my  mind  that  Sam  was  grieving 
because  of  the  chain! 

I  unclasped  the  links,  set  him  free  and  petted  him  with 
a  flood  of  tears  on  my  own  part,  that  I  had  been  so  stupid. 
Instantly  he  recovered  his  spirits,  caressed  my  hands, 
danced  about  me  and  joyfully  accepted  the  food  and  drink. 
He  lay  quietly  on  the  rug  until  morning,  renewing  his 
caresses  and  his  gratitude  when  I  greeted  him  with  petting 
words  after  the  welcome  daylight  dawned  for  us  both. 
I  believe  he  would  have  died  from  grief  if  that  chain  had 
not  been  removed.  I  think  he  would  die  with  shame,  if 
again  humiliated  and  made  to  feel  an  indignity  or  disgrace. 
It  is  an  open  question  as  to  how  much  he  really  knows, 
and  feels,  and  suffers,  for  he  is  evidently  on  a  higher  plane 
than  the  common  brute  creation,  if  his  sphere  is  lower 
than  that  of  the  human  mind. 

April  10,  1894.  MRS.  W.  H.  FELTON. 


MRS.    DR.    W.    H.    FELTON    ON     HEREDITY. 

Thoughtful  and  Brilliant  Discourse  by  One  of  the  Greatest 

Minds    Among    the    Women    of    America — Created 

Favorable   Comment   Everywhere. 


The  proceedings  of  the  Mothers'   Congress,  which  was 
held  in  Washington  in  February,  have  recently  been  pub- 

264 


lished  in  book  form,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  among 
the  brilliant  features  of  the  entire  congress  was  the  ad- 
dress made  by  a  Georgia  woman — Mrs.  W.  H.  Felton. 
She  was  honored  by  the  National  Association  of  mothers 
when  selected  by  them  to   represent  Georgia  at  large. 

The  reports  of  the  congress  make  a  most  attractive 
pamphlet  and  was  printed  by  the  Appleton's  of  New 
York  City.  It  contains  nearly  300  pages  and  is  illustrated 
with  fine  pictures  of  the  general  officers  of  the  organiza- 
tion. 

By  special  request  of  the  committee  Mrs.  Felton's 
paper  on  "Heredity"  was  applied  for  and  printed  in  the 
volume  before  us.  Except  Mrs.  Cotton,  of  North  Caro- 
lina, Mrs.  Felton  was  the  only  southern  woman  thus  hon- 
ored. All  Georgians  feel  appreciated  interest  in  the  paper 
of  Mrs.  Felton  and  it  is  here  reproduced: 

"The  bearing,  nursing  and  training  of  children  who 
must  take  up  the  burdens  of  human  life  after  we  have 
passed  away  and  carry  on  the  work  which  falls  unfinished 
from  our  lifeless  hands  are  perforce  the  subject  of  first  im- 
portance to  intelligent  and  patriotic  mothers. 

"So  long  as  mothers  are  a  necessity  for  the  human  race, 
these  subjects  must  retain  vital  interest,  for  whatever 
one  may  lack  in  this  earthly  career  certain  it  is  we  have 
all  been  granted  a  mother.  Aye  more,  every  human  be- 
ing ushered  into  this  world  has  been  impressed  in  charac- 
ter, health  and  tendency  by  the  belongings  of  the  mother 
— her  health,  features  and  disposition  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree. 

"This  connection  is  manifestly  close  and  intimate.  If 
every  human  life  is  lifted  up  or  lowered  down  by  the 
home  that  it  is  born  into  we  hazard  nothing  to  affirm 
that  the  happiness  and  morals  of  a  child  are  more  inti- 
mately affected  by  the  happiness  and  morals  of  the  par- 
ents than  by  any  other  influence  to  which  infancy  and 
childhood  are  subjected. 

"We  are  told  that  the  hand  which  'rocks  the  cradle 
rules  the  world.'  I  have  lived  in  the  world  for  over  half 
a  century,  but  I  find  no  evidence  of  rulersbip  in  the  act 
of  cradle-rocking.  If  it  had  been  recorded  that  the  hand 
which  rocks  the  cradle  bears  the  burdens  of  the  world  the 
connection  between  the  truth  and  poetry  would  have  been 
self-evident. 

"Mothers  are  emphatically  burden-bearers.  Mother  love 
walks  hand  in  hand  with  anxiety  and  care.  This  com- 
panionship between  mother,  love  and  apprehension  begins 
at  the  cradle  and  lingers  at  the  grave  of  the  offspring. 
We  also  know  that  whatever  of  privation,  self-denial,  grief, 
poverty  or  shame  is  allotted  to  the  household,  the  mother 
is  certain  to  take  to  herself  the  lion's  share  of  it.  When 
her  child  suffers  in  health  or  character,  no  one  feels  it 
more  keenly,  and  when  the  law  condemns  its  victim,  it 
is  her  poor  knees  that  bend  to  the  executive  for  pardon. 

265 


"Remembering  the  universality  of  this  rule  of  suffering 
then,  the  value  of  information  and  the  proper  under- 
standing of  the  hereditary  tendencies  and  their  evils  must 
ever  remain  of  vital  interest  to  mothers,  so  long  as  chil- 
dren remain  what  they  are — namely,  a  part  and  parcel 
of  the  mother's  own  existence. 

"If  this  congress  of  mothers  rises  to  its  full  scope  and 
liberty,  the  world  will  take  a  fresh  start  for  usefulness 
from  the  standpoint  of  motherhood  in  relation  to  its  holi- 
est and  most  exalted  privileges. 

"I  made  choice  of  the  present  subject,  not  because  I 
approach  heredity  with  the  skill  or  learning  of  a  physician, 
nor  because  I  can  make  plain  how  'like  produces  like,' 
nor  because  I  could  promise  you  a  remedy  in  my  children 
or  your  own,  but  I  come  simply  to  emphasize  the  impor- 
tance of  the  subject,  which  has  molded  the  lives  of  your 
ancestry  and  will  affect  those  who  will  come  after  you 
in  the  cycles  of  eternity. 

"The  time  for  enlargement  and  development  has  come 
to  the  woman  question.  Human  life  has  felt  the  touch  of 
progress,  and  it  was  nearly  one-third  of  a  century  before 
I  appreciated  the  dangers  that  lie  in  wait  for  the  innocent 
unborn.  I  was  led  to  investigate  the  statistics  of  drunken- 
ness, and  found  an  evil  which  generates  murderers,  law- 
breakers, suicides,  lunatics  and  idiots,  and  I  could  trace 
the  hereditary  taint  in  families.  A  pestilence  that  walked 
in  darkness  and  wasted  at  noonday,  which  destroyed  more 
of  the  children  of  woman  than  war,  plagues  or  famine. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  record  the  extent  of  this  heredi- 
tary evil  of  intemperance,  but  it  is  the  place  to  confess 
that  I  was  ignorant  for  so  long  a  period  of  my  life,  and 
to  emphasize  the  awakening  of  mothers  to  these  condi- 
tions in  latter  years. 

"Because  these  hereditary  evils  are  hidden,  intangible 
and  insidious — generally  unknown  to  the  victim  and  suf- 
ferers— I  venture  into  this  discussion  to  sound  a  note  of 
entreaty  and  warning. 

"It  astonishes  a  thinking  mind  to  see  the  care  lavished 
on  musty  titles  to  real  estate  when  people  rush  into  matri- 
mony without  a  thought  of  the  past  or  future  very  often. 
The  contract  for  'better  or  worse'  is  a  literal  one,  so  far 
as  the  protection  of  the  helpless  is  concerned.  It  is  like- 
wise astonishing  that  people  select  homes,  mostly  for 
pecuniary  betterment,  when  their  children  will  mate  or 
mismate  with  those  whom  they  are  thus  thrown.  We 
engage  the  best  legal  talent  to  defend  our  property  rights, 
but  children  rush  into  matrimony  without  investigation 
of  past  history  or  entailed  diseases  in  the  most  of  cases. 
Such  scant  outlook  for  the  past  and  future  brings  about 
unhappy  alliances  and  rapid  divorce  proceedings.  'On  such 
feeble  causes  do  our  destinies  hinge.' 

"Stock  breders  take  no  risk  with  unknown  pedigrees. 
Florists  demand  pure  seed  or  fertilization  is  wasted.    The 

266 


fruit  grower  expects  only  perfect  fruit  with  good  grafts 
to  insert  in  reliable  stock.  American  girls  are  neverthe- 
less flung  out  to  catch  money  or  position,  no  matter  what 
sort  of  barnacles  infest  their  life's  craft. 

"To  my  mind  there  is  nothing  so  pleasing  in  art  or 
nature  as  a  young  mother's  smile  for  her  first  born.  When 
the  little  one  returns  her  smile  there  is  a  holy  light  in 
her  eyes  that  is  not  found  on  land  or  sea;  yet  that  young 
mother  may  carry  disease  in  her  system,  or  the  father 
may  have  already  infected  that  child  with  enough  of 
hereditary  evils  to  disease  it  for  life  and  make  its  exis- 
tence a  misery  to  others. 

"It  is  a  fearful  responsibility  to  become  a  parent!  Man 
is  wonderfully  and  fearfully  made,  but  among  the  dan- 
gers and  wonders,  none  are  so  great  as  the  transmission 
of  such  evils  from  parent  to  child. 

"The  curse  that  follows  to  the  third  and  fourth  genera- 
tion is  obliged  to  be  an  inherited  curse.  Thanks  be  to 
God,  He  has  promised  to  show  mercy  to  those  who  live 
uprightly  and  keep  His  commandments. 

"One  of  the  most  effective  paintings  I  ever  saw  was 
on  exhibition  at  the  Philadelphia  Centennial.  Perhaps  you 
all  remember  it. 

"Rizpah  standing  on  the  rock  keeping  watch  over  her 
dead  sons  who  were  hanged  by  the  Gideonites  because 
tney  were  also  the  sons  of  King  Saul.  The  picture  of 
hopeless,  fierce  mother  love,  fastened  itself  upon  my  mem- 
ory. It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  know  that  innocence  and 
helpfulness  must  suffer  because  of  the  sins  of  the  father, 
yes,  and  of  the  mothers,  likewise.  I  measure  my  words 
in  the  sight  of  heaven  when  I  say  that  every  child  born 
into  this  world  should  have  a  clean  home  to  be  born  into, 
with  clear  blood  in  its  veins,  or  that  helpless  innocent 
should  not  come  here  at  all.  It  comes  without  its  own 
consent.  It  has  no  'say  so'  in  this  forced  existence.  The 
vices  that  germinate  in  unbridled  passion,  unholy  living 
and  filthy  appetite  are  surely  transmitted  to  the  unborn. 
'Woe  unto  them  by  whom  offenses   come.' 

"It  is  rank  injustice  to  pure  mother  love,  which  goes 
down  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  to  give  life 
to  an  immortal  being,  that  this  child  of  her  devotion  and 
self-sacrifice  should  be  loaded  down  to  the  gunwales  with 
ancestral  failings  before  its  eyes  open  to  the  light  of  day. 
When  the  mother  finds  the  agony  greater  than  she  can 
bear  and  her  soul  floats  out  into  the  unknown,  what  a 
mercy  it  is  when  the  little  one  goes  with  her  before  it 
takes  up  the  unequal  burdens  of  life,  bereft  of  mother's 
love   and  watchful  care! 

"The  protection  of  motherhood  is  the  highest  obligation 
of  the  human  race.  There  should  be  active,  living  re- 
sponsibility. The  courts  should  shield  it  as  they  protect 
no  other  party  or  principle.  The  pulpit  should  thunder 
in  the  ears  of  the  indifferent  and  careless.     Fathers  and 

267 


husbands  should  resolve  that  whatever  else  may  deserve 
protection,  the  mother  and  her  infant  deserve  first  men- 
tion and  most  extraordinary  care. 

"When  we  remember  that  every  sudden  shock,  excited 
nerve,  painful  thought,  cruel  treatment  or  harsh  word  is 
felt  and  impressed  upon  an  innocent  child — that  the  mother 
would  almost  die  to  save  from  evil  and  disease — the  mag- 
nitude of  this  obligation  in  regard  to  child-bearing  as- 
sumes its  proper  proportions. 

"Excessive  mental  strain  is  known  to  produce  nervous 
diseases  in  the  offspring.  Neurotic  children  become  vic- 
tims of  consumption,  epilepsy  and  idiocy.  When  nerve 
cells  are  once  destroyed  they  never  develop  again.  There 
may  be  diseases  not  strictly  inherited,  but  if  the  child  has 
an  irritable,  unstable,  inadequately  developed  and  badly 
nourished  system,  the  tendency  to  disease  may  be  in- 
herited. Among  inherited  diseases  we  find  consumption, 
cancer,  scrofula  and  kindred  ailments.  They  are  handed 
down  to  posterity  more  surely  than  gold  or  lands.  It 
would  be  a  most  unwelcome  revelation  to  see  what  sort 
of  possessions  are  inherited  that  are  not  set  down  when 
wills   and   'last  testaments'   are   recorded   in   court! 

"I  believe  that  the  time  must  come  when  the  nation, 
in  self-defense,  will  place  a  limit  upon  the  propagation 
of  diseased  men  and  women  because  of  expense  to  the 
state.  Diseased  moral  and  physical  beings  confined  in 
quarters  of  filth  and  depravity  generate  their  offspring 
in  a  hotbed  of  sin  and  physical  decay.  Local  restrictions 
prevail  as  to  consanguinity.  Your  property  is  assessed 
to  educate  the  ignorant  to  protect  the  state  against  crime 
and  depravity.  An  ounce  of  prevention  is  said  to  be  worth 
a  pound  of  cure.  If  the  state  pays  for  cure,  why  not  for 
prevention? 

"Motherhood  is  horrified  to  find  such  entailment  on  its 
children  when  aroused  to  these  dangers.  I  know  of  no 
remedy  but  a  rooting  out  of  existing  causes.  It  is  the 
common-sense  remedy  that  holds  good  in  all  business,  pub- 
lic or  private.  The  world  needs  a  revival  of  interest  in 
true  woman's  work,  for  there  is  scope  for  the  best  judg- 
ment and  energy  of  the  best  minds  to  protect  the  mother 
and  her  offspring.  No  well  informed  person  can  look 
upon  the  human  wrecks  that  strew  a  storm-swept  shore 
without  asking  the  question,  'What  would  I  have  been  if 
my  fore-fathers  and  fore-mothers  had  flung  sobriety  and 
decent  living  to  the  winds  and  brought  me  into  a  world 
of  sin,  loaded  down  with  hereditary  evils  and  debased 
environment?  Therefore,  my  mother-heart  grows  tender 
to  the  frail,  soiled  down  dove  in  last  night's  station  house. 
Therefore,  my  soul  sympathizes  with  that  sin-soaked  boy 
in  the  penitentiary.  If  one-half  the  energy  and  zeal  which 
is  displayed  in  convicting  and  punishing  the  criminals  had 
been  expended  in  removing  temptation  and  the  sink-holes 
of  perdition  from  their  vicinity,  my  word  for  it,  we  would 

268 


find  outselves  in  more  satisfactory  business — with  marked 
decrease  in  crime  and  misery.  I  cannot  draw  a  dividing 
line  between  inoculated  inclinations  and  those  of  their 
own  devices.  The  epidemic  of  suicides  shows  the  curse 
that  follows  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation.  The 
fathers  ate  sour  grapes  and  the  children's  teeth  are  on 
edge.  The  Almighty  is  too  wise  to  err,  too  good  to  be 
unkind — but  blame  will  fall  in  the  final  account  which 
was  hidden  from  mortal  sight,  and  mercy  will  comfort 
those  who  were  more  sinned  against  than  sinning. 

"As  mothers  we  have  been  disinclined  to  take  our  own 
children  into  our  confidence  on  this  mutual  relationship 
of  mother  and  child.  There  must  be  some  proper  way 
to  interest  even  a  little  child  in  the  history  of  its  life 
without  detriment  to  innocence  or  embarrassment  to  the 
parent.  There  is  nothing  offensive  in  purity,  there  can 
be  nothing  vulgar  in  innocence.  If  our  daughters  under- 
stood the  duties  and  obligations  of  married  life  before 
as  well  as  afterwards,  there  would  be  fewer  failures  in 
matrimony.  The  prevalence  of  divorces  grows  out  of  this 
ignorance  before  the  contract  is  entered  into.  There  is 
nothing  more  lovely  than  a  pure-hearted  ma-iden.  There 
is  nothing  more  pitiable  than  her  unhappiness  when  her 
idol  turns  to  clay  and  becomes  an  instrument  of  torture 
in  her  disappointment  and  despair,  to  be  reflected  for- 
evermore  in  the  lives  and  habits  of  their  children.  Chil- 
dren can  be  instructed  before  the  tide  of  passion  rises 
hign  in  their  affections.  Experience  shows  us  that  they 
will  risk  everything  afterwards.  Marriage  is  truly  called 
a  lottery.  That  the  children  of  loving  mothers  should 
throw  dice  for  the  uncertain  result,  is  a  sad  commentary 
either  on  our  intelligence  or  general  indifference  to  their 
own  fate.  When  a  hereditary  curse  is  located,  there  should 
be  no  compromise — no  hesitation  in  warring  on  it.  An 
organization  of  women  will  evince  more  of  resolution  and 
energy  toward  a  remedy  or  relief  than  individuals  can  do. 
The  influence  of  a  good  mother  in  her  home  is  beneficent 
and  uplifting,  but  union  of  mothers  will  add  force  to  in- 
quiry and  strength  to  influence  public  opinion. 

"Fifty  years  from  now  the  country  will  look  back  on  a 
generation  which  raised  revenues  from  the  licensed  de- 
bauchery of  its  citizens  with  contempt  and  disgust.  In 
less  time  pure-hearted  mothers  will  wonder  why  a  little 
ten-year-old  girl  in  Georgia  is  considered  able  to  protect 
her  virtue  from  a  libertine  under  the  laws  of  a  sovereign 
state. 

"To  those  who  will  say  that  men  are  amply  able  to 
bring  such  reforms  about,  I  can  only  reply  they  have  had 
a  hundred  years  of  free  government  to  make  any  changes 
they  chose,  yet  these  enormities  in  legislation  remain  in 
force  on  our  statute  books.  Mothers,  we  know,  are  held 
responsible  in  large  measure  for  the  characters  and  con- 
duct of  their  children.     It  would  be  foolish  to  remain  silent 

269 


any  longer.  I  welcome  free  discussion  of  all  the  duties 
and  obligations  of  motherhood  touching  all  these  vital 
questions.  It  is  not  likely  we  will  ever  know  more  of 
the  subtle  force,  in  this  life,  which  transmits  hereditary 
tendencies  to  the  unborn  child.  I  find  a  tiny  spark  of 
green  on  the  wall  during  these  bright  spring  days.  Di- 
rectly I  find  a  tiny  leaf  and  perfect  flower.  Last  year  the 
same  phenomenon  occurred.  Perhaps  it  will  occur  so 
long  as  the  wall  shall  last.  Each  year  the  new  seed  plant 
is  a  copy  of  the  one  that  perished  under  wintry  blasts.  I 
know  nothing  of  the  transmission  of  vitality — I  only  know 
there  is  reproduction  in  plant  life  and  animal  life — that 
'like  produces  like.'  The  reproduction  in  human  life 
would  seem  to  be  a  subject  that  even  the  angels  would 
desire  to  look  into.  Mothers  have  vested  rights  to  in- 
quiry and  investigation.  You  have  doubtless  seen  the 
motto:  'She  is  only  half  a  mother  who  does  not  see  her 
own  child  in  every  child — her  own  child's  grief  in  every 
pain  which  makes  another  child  weep.'  " 


WRITTEN    PREVIOUSLY    TO    FOUNDING    OF    NORMAL 
AND   INDUSTRIAL   SCHOOL,   MILLEDGEVILLE,   GA. 

THE    INDUSTRIAL   SCHOOL    FOR    GIRLS. 

Editors  Chronicle:  There  seems  to  be  some  contro- 
versy as  to  whose  brain  and  patriotism  the  establishment 
of  the  industrial  school  for  girls  belongs.  But  let  that 
go.  It  is  not  the  first  time  by  many  that  nimble  feet 
have  beaten  those  who  were  either  too  slow  or  too  modest 
to  assert  their  claims. 

There  is  also  a  question  as  to  who  shall  be  president — 
a  man  or  a  woman.  Let  that  go  also.  Give  it  to  the  man 
who  is  resolved  to  have  the  place  and  the  salary,  and 
let  the  women  wait  until  they  shall  be  more  than  sup- 
pliants for  public  favor.  They  have  waited  on  the  anxious 
bench  for  a  long  time,  begging  recognition.  Let  them 
wait  until  the  force  of  public  opinion  grants  it  as  a  duty 
and  a  right.  Some  of  us  will  not  live  to  see  the  day; 
others  will.     Let  us  be  thankful! 

As  to  trades  and  professions,  the  time  has  passed  when 
woman's  cry  for  a  share  in  them,  as  to  profits,  had  noth- 
ing in  it.  The  difficulty  is,  men  have  possession,  and 
fight  to  keep  it.  There  is  a  growing  impatience  in  the 
country  against  the  usurpation  of  places,  which  belong  by 
right  to  women,  who  are  compelled  by  circumstances  to 
support  themselves.  Out  of  this  feeling  industrial  train- 
ing schools  are  starting  up  all  over  the  United  States. 

There  is  a  great  overplus  of  women  in  some  of  the 
states.  There  has  been  a  vast  increase  of  poverty  in  the 
South  since  the  war.  The  lower  classes  among  the  white 
population  are  in  a  deplorable  condition.     They  may  well 

270 


cry,  "No  man  cares  for  them" — in  a  just  and  proper  way. 
The  scarcity  of  field  labor  compels  these  women  to  go 
to  the  roughest  and  hardest  work,  unfit  for  the  delicate 
and  peculiar  conditions  of  the  sex.  They  may  be  out  of 
their  sphere  as  lecturers,  reformers,  etc.,  but  certainly 
they  are  not  where  they  ought  to  be  in  the  cornfield  fol- 
lowing a  plow  or  wielding  a  hoe.  When  we  recollect  the 
army  of  men  who  are  dancing  behind  counters,  or  occupy- 
ing clerk's  places,  which  work  these  women  could  do  with 
ease  and  ability,  it  seems  as  if  the  eternal  fitness  of  things 
should  prevail,  and  the  men  should  go  to  outdoor  hard 
work,  while  their  sisters  should  come  under  shelter  to 
earn  their  living.  My  heart  aches  for  the  poor  white  girls 
in  Georgia.  Millions  are  being  donated  for  the  education 
and  industrial  training  of  colored  girls.  A  day  or  two 
ago  a  rich  heiress  in  Philadelphia  took  the  veil  and  left 
millions  to  found  a  college  near  that  city  for  the  uplifting 
of  colored  girls.  The  Slater  fund  is  at  work  all  over  the 
South — millions  upon  millions  are  donated  willingly  and 
cheerfully  to  make  the  colored  girl  a  proficient  in  litera- 
ture, science  and  self-sustaining  in  the  marts  of  the  world. 

God  forbid  that  any  Southern  woman  should  begrudge 
the  help  that  fanatical  patriotism  and  puritanical  sectar- 
ianism has  given  them!  But  my  heart  aches  for  the  poor 
white  girl!  Thousands  were  deprived  of  their  natural 
protectors  by  the  war.  Many  a  man  died  in  the  Confed- 
erate army  who  never  had  a  slave  to  fight  for!  It  is  the 
descendants  of  poor  parents — poor  white  girls — that  I  am 
interested  in,  because  they  are  nearly  friendless  in  a  cold 
hard  world,  and  they  are  to  be  the  mothers  of  the  coming 
generations  of  whites.  Two  years  ago,  when  I  had  oppor- 
tunity I  appealed  to  a  farmer's  meeting  on  this  point.  I 
left  my  sphere,  perhaps,  to  beg  them  to  remember  these 
girls — and  when  I  descended  from  the  improvised  rostrum 
a  young  woman  met  me,  with  tears  streaming  from  her 
eyes.  "Bless  your  heart,"  she  cried,  "my  father  died  in 
the  war.  His  poor  bones  lie  over  yonder  on  that  hillside 
and  this  is  the  first  word  I  have  heard  since  that  time 
which  seemed  to  remember  he  ever  had  a  daughter.  I 
work  in  the  field  to  earn  the  bread  we  eat.  I  crave  learn- 
ing as  I  never  craved  food,  and  I've  been  hungry  many 
a  time.  I  can  do  nothing  to  earn  a  nickel  but  plow,  hoe 
and  pick  cotton  in  the  hot  sun.  God  bless  you  for  your 
sympathy,  if  you  can  help  me  no  more!" 

When  this  industrial  college  starts,  do  let  it  be  a  school 
for  women.  Don't  make  it  a  man's  school,  patterned  after 
man's  ideas,  and  based  on  what  man  has  done  or  can  do. 
There  should  be  simplicity  of  living,  strict  economy — to 
suit  the  means  of  those  whom  it  sbould  benefit.  If  it  is 
to  be  a  local  affair  for  Milledgeville,  it  will  be  a  local  affair 
and  nothing  more.  The  salary  of  the  president  should 
not  run  up  into  the  thousands.  We  find  the  rivalry  in 
salaries  in  other  institutions   in  Georgia  about  the  most 

271 


prominent  feature  of  the  concerns.  When  the  state  cashes 
the  salary  checks,  provides  certain  pay,  a  good  man  (if 
there  is  no  woman  considered  fit  to  hold  the  office)  ought 
to  take  the  place  for  the  interest  he  felt  in  the  work,  not 
for  how  much  he  could  spend  additional  on  his  home  or 
invest  in  outside  real  estate.  State  work  of  this  sort 
shouldn't  be  an  adjunct  to  any  other  scheme  to  make 
money — denominational  work  especially.  If  big  pay  from 
the  state  is  forthcoming,  let  the  whole  time  he  given  to 
the  pupils,  and  public  opinion  will  make  the  demand  right 
early.  Next,  let  the  health  of  the  pupils  be  under  con- 
tinual oversight.  The  health  of  a  woman  stands  for  more 
than  the  health  of  any  living  creature  under  the  sun. 
God  made  choice  of  woman  as  the  most  careful,  attentive, 
faithful  and  reliable  custodian  of  the  human  race,  at  a 
period  when  nothing  else,  no  other  sort  of  care  would 
answer.  To  be  a  healthy  mother,  girlhood  should  be  at- 
tentively watched  as  to  health,  as  any  physician  will  tell 
you. 

For  pity's  sake,  if  nobody  but  a  man  is  considered  fit 
to  oversee  a  girls'  industrial  school,  do  let  his  wife  or 
some  other  woman  draw  a  little  pay  to  watch  after  wet 
feet  and  other  imprudences  common  to  careless  children, 
away  from  their  mothers.  How  much  consumption  has 
been  transmitted  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  by 
this  sort  of  negligence  will  surprise  the  assembled  multi- 
tudes, at  judgment  day.  Again  whatever  is  taught  let  it 
be  useful — something  to  last — and  something  whereby  to 
make  a  living.  I  see  it  proposed  that  the  president  (man, 
as  he  is  to  be)  must  then  go  abroad  to  see  and  learn  what 
he  is  expected  to  do.  No  doubt  of  that  in  my  mind;  I 
only  hope  he  will  devote  enough  time  to  the  search  to 
apply  what  he  sees  and  hears  to  some  good  purpose.  If 
he  is  paid  by  the  state  to  qualify  himself,  why  not  send 
some  woman  on  the  same  errand  to  point  out  what  a  fe- 
male thinks  would  be  useful  to  the  female  sex?  The 
moral  and  religious  training  of  women  means  the  moral 
and  religious  training  of  the  whole  race.  Do  not  forget 
that  when  the  school  is  set  upon  its  feet. 

Respectfully, 

Mrs.  W.  H.  Felton. 

Bartow  County,  Feb.  16,  1891. 


A    NIGHT    IN    THE    CONFEDERACY. 

Writtten   by   Mrs.   W.   H.   Felton    More  Than   Thirty  Years 

Ago — Tells  of  the  Trials  of  a    Refugee. 


Many  Soldiers  Sing  "How   Firm  a   Foundation." 

Atlanta  had  been  in  the  hands  of  Gen.  Sherman  two 
months.  All  who  could  get  away  had  left  the  city  in 
advance.     These  refugees  had  been  crowded  in  upon  the 

272 


already  crowded  population  of  middle  and  lower  Georgia. 
But  more  were  yet  to  come.  Gen.  Sherman  issued  an 
order  which  read  thus:  "I  have  deemed  it  to  be  the  interest 
of  the  United  States  that  the  citizens  of  Atlanta  should 
remove — those  who  prefer,  to  go  south,  the  rest  north." 
Gen.  Hood  in  command  of  the  Confederate  troops  de- 
nounced the  command  as  barbarous,  but  it  was  acceded 
to  through  humanity.  Thus  the  city  was  made  to  empty 
itself  upon  a  section  already  crowded. 

The  question  of  food  for  this  largely  increased  popula- 
tion became  paramount.  Wheat  sold  that  week  in  Au- 
gusta, Ga.,  at  $20  to  $25  per  bushel;  corn  in  the  ear,  from 
wagons,  $12  to  $14  per  bushel;  tobacco,  $3.50  to  $5  per 
pound;  sugar,  $6  to  $8  per  pound;  eggs,  $3.50  per  dozen; 
potatoes,  $15  per  bushel;  rough  unbleached  domestic, 
$3.50  per  yard;  and  jeans,  $10  per  yard;  salt  brought 
$40  per  bushel;   horses,  from  $800  to  $1,000  each. 

No  wonder  Gov.  Brown  went  to  the  front  to  make  pro- 
vision for  the  people  escaping  from  Atlanta  under  the 
flag  of  truce — during  the  ten  days'  armistice!  The  ac- 
counts from  the  city  after  capitulation  were  alarming.  A 
reliable  correspondent  published  the  following  in  the 
Macon  Intelligence,  a  paper  witn  an  immense  circulation 
in  the  state:  "On  Monday  night  the  yankees  had  a  grand 
ball  at  the  Trout  House  in  Atlanta.  Gen.  Sherman,  his 
staff,  his  corps  and  division  commanders  patronized  the 
affair.  One  of  our  traitors  proposed  to  open  the  ball  with 
prayer  and  thanksgiving  for  the  great  and  decisive  vic- 
tory that  had  captured  Atlanta,  broken  the  spirit  of  the 
Confederacy,  and  brought  Georgia  where  it  could  be  gov- 
erned by  the  enlightened  rule  of  the  royal  ape.  He  said 
he  was  proud  to  see  so  many  black  sisters  in  arms  wel- 
coming the  conquerors.  The  negro  women  were  feted, 
toasted  and  monopolized  the  attention  of  the  entire  crew. 
They  waltzed,  schottisched,  polkaed  and  danced  until 
everybody  was  tired  and  drunk.  The  saturnalia  was  kept 
up  until  morning,  when  they  tottered  away  in  many  tired 
pairs  of  ebony  and  ivory." 

The  country  was  in  no  pleasant  state  of  mind  or  body. 

As  winter  approached  the  situation  became  alarming. 
Gen.  Sherman's  movements  were  carefully  concealed.  The 
southern  papers  pronounced  his  situation  hazardous,  and 
the  Confederacy  was  about  to  win  its  decisive  victory, 
but  the  people  were  not  satisfied,  they  had  been  deceived 
too  often. 

One  class  throve  upon  the  miseries  and  misfortunes  of 
their  fellowmen.  Trade  was  brisk  about  the  commissary 
and  quartermasters'  departments.  Blockade  runners  made 
Wilmington,  N.  C,  a  place  of  thrift  and  activity.  Negro 
slaves  sold  as  high  as  $5,000  in  Augusta  and  Macon,  just 
before  Sherman  began  his  march  to  the  sea.  But  those 
that  had  nothing  to  sell  had,  of  course,  but  little  money  to 

273 


buy.  Privation  pressed  heavily  upon  the  honest  and 
patriotic,  while  unscrupulous  men  made  fortunes. 

So  thought  Mrs.  M.  in  a  secluded  farm  house  five  miles 
from  Macon,  on  a  bleak  November  day,  as  she  watched 
the  road  for  the  return  of  a  messenger  from  the  postoffice. 
She  had  been  living  in  Atlanta  two  years — a  Kentucky 
refugee.  He,  her  husband,  was  in  Lee's  army,  and  she 
had  rented  the  farmhouse,  her  only  place  of  shelter,  when 
she  was  dismissed  from  the  city  by  Gen.  Sherman's  order. 
She  was  grateful  for  a  roof  over  her  head  and  food  to 
eat — although  it  was  a  place  destitute  of  every  luxury, 
and  the  food  was  as  plain  as  possible,  inferior  in  quality 
and  poor  in  preparation.  The  monthly  board  for  herself 
and  children  completely  wiped  out  her  husband's  pay  as 
an  officer  in  the  Confederate  army,  but  shelter  and  food 
were  imperative  necessities.  There  had  been  a  battle 
in  Virginia,  she  was  inexpressibly  anxious.  The  reports 
were  meagre,  casualties  many,  and  she  longed  for  a  letter. 
When  the  messenger  came  there  was  a  letter,  but  not 
from  the  army.  It  told  of  her  mother's  extreme  illness, 
in  Carolina — above  Augusta,  where  she  had  drifted  as  a 
refugee  with  another  married  daughter,  whose  husband 
was  in  the  navy.  Mrs.  M.  resolved  to  go,  although  the 
trip  entailed  an  all  night  railroad  ride,  and  away  up  into 
the  next  day.  It  meant  more  still  to  her,  as  it  would  con- 
sume every  cent  of  her  little  store  of  Confederate  money 
to  make  the  journey.  There  were  rumors  of  raids — 
everything  was  in  a  state  of  uncertainty,  confusion  and 
discomfort.  But  she  must  go,  the  beloved  mother  might 
be  dying. 

She  recollected  her  closing  request,  "Come,  my  daugh- 
ter, and  close  my  eyes  when  I  die,  if  I  must  die  away  from 
Kentucky  in  this  war-stricken  land.  I  came  here  to  take 
the  chances  with  my  daughters.  Come  when  I  send  for 
you."  How  could  she  fail  to  go  under  such  a  pledge? 
Besides,  she  was  so  lonely  and  helpless,  better  starve  with 
her  dear  ones  than  endure  this  life  any  longer.  Such 
were  the  conclusions  after  a  night  of  sleepless  anxiety. 

Next  day  was  consumed  in  an  effort  to  get  herself,  chil- 
dren and  trunks  to  the  Macon  depot,  where  she  arrived 
in  the  afternoon  for  a  weary  spell  of  waiting  until  the 
night  train  for  Savannah  on  the  Central  railroad  pulled 
out.  Chairs  by  the  fire  in  the  Brown  house  retailed  at  $5 
per  night,  so  she  shivered  in  the  car-shed,  hoping  to  be 
on  time  to  secure  a  good  seat  in  the  train  that  left  after 
dark   on   schedule   time. 

When  it  pulled  across  the  river  and  under  the  carshed, 
it  was  already  full  of  people.  She  found  every  car  but 
the  so-called  ladies'  car  packed  with  soldiers,  moving 
across  the  state  to  reinforce  the  Virginia  army.  The  la- 
dies' car  was  full,  and  she  was  thankful  to  find  an  end 
seat,  with  no  back  to  it  but  the  wall  of  the  coach  itself.  It 
was  dreadful  to  think  of  the  long  night  before  her,  with 

274 


those  little  children  in  that  uncomfortable  place,  but  it 
was  to  be  preferred  to  a  seat  on  a  valise  in  the  middle 
of  the  aisle,  to  be  jostled  and  get  up  with  every  trip  of 
conductor  through  the  train.  Men  were  glad  to  find 
standing  room,  many  deeming  it  good  fortune  to  find  a 
seat  to  lean  against  in  the  jam. 

The  night  was  cold,  but  there  could  be  no  fire — the 
crowd  was  too  great.  Well  worn  army  clothes  and  the 
breath  of  so  many  travelers  soon  raised  steam,  as  well 
as  a  sickening  odor,  to  poor  Mrs.  M.'s  nervous  head.  Her 
eyes  ached — her  head,  her  limbs — every  part  of  her  frame 
ached. 

With  standing  room  at  a  premium,  her  stiff  narrow  seat 
was  a  boon  to  her  weary  limbs.  The  train  had  been 
forging  along  for  a  half  hour;  the  way  stations  illuminated 
by  bonfires  made  of  blazing  fat  pine  knots,  and  settled 
herself  for  the  inevitable,  when  some  passenger  called 
her  name  in  the  rear  of  the  conductor  and  his  ticket 
lantern.  She  recognized  him  at  once  as  an  Atlanta  ac- 
quaintance, but  refugee  life  had  completely  demoralized 
him.  He  was  drunk — almost  maudlin.  "Oh,  Mrs.  M.,  this 
is  lucky.  I'm  in  luck,  certain.  Lemme  set  down  there; 
I'll  nurse  the  little  girl— (hiccup).  Cap'n  M.'s  a  good  look- 
ing man;  so's  his  children.  Come  here,  little  woman — 
let  your  papa's  old  friend  nurse  you  a  little,"  (hiccup,  etc.) 

Before  Mrs.  M.  could  arouse  herself  to  forbid  his  occu- 
pancy of  the  seat  beside  herself  he  was  in  place  with  the 
frightened  child  on  his  lap.  The  conductor  was  ahead, 
too  far  away  to  protest.  The  situation,  already  uncom- 
fortable, became  appalling.  For  twelve  hours  to  sit  in  the 
immediate  proximity  to  a  drunken  stranger  already  ap- 
proaching stupid  intoxication  was  intolerable  to  contem- 
plate. His  inebriate  condition  made  him  oblivious  to  gen- 
teel conduct. 

If  Mrs.  M.  should  complain  to  the  conductor,  things 
might  even  be  worse  as  she  feared  and  the  poor  woman 
was  nearly  frantic  with  apprehension.  When  that  official 
came  near  her  on  his  return  trip,  she  gathered  courage  to 
say:  "Please,  can't  you  find  me  another  seat?"  but  the 
conductor  hardly  waited  to  hear  her  finish  the  appeal  to 
assure  her  that  the  person  who  occupied  a  seat,  no  matter 
how  uncomfortable,  had  better  hold  fast  to  it.  "Half 
loaf's  better  than  no  bread,  my  dear  madam,"  added  the 
conductor  with  a  most  reassuring  nod  of  the  head  as  he 
bowed  himself  out  the  door  at  her  side. 

Her  little  one  in  her  arms  was  fast  asleep  and  the  other 
child  had  shrunk  so  far  away  from  her  captor  until  she 
was  almost  on  her  lap  also.  As  the  train  rocked  and 
swayed,  her  companion  nodded  and  rolled  to  and  fro  so 
far  as  his  cramped  limits  allowed.  She  momentarily  ex- 
pected him  to  keel  over  and  strike  the  seat  in  front  of 
them,  and  she  almost  forgot  her  torture  of  mind  and  body 
In  constant  expectation  of  that  event,  but  no,  he  caught 

275 


himself  each  time — squared  himself,  opened  his  eyes  only 
to  go  through  the  same  performance  time  and  again — 
giving  a  little  variety  by  an  occasional  bump  on  her 
shoulder. 

It  seemed  hours  to  her  excited  mind,  that  they  were 
thus  occupied — when  the  acquaintance  aroused  himself  to 
"look  after  his  luggage" — (maybe  induced  to  go  by  the 
flask  hidden  therein)  and  with  careful  request  "to  save 
my  seat  until  I  get  back,"  he  waddled  away  to  the  rear 
as  fast  as  the  packed  aisle  permitted. 

A  woman's  fertility  of  resources  came  at  once  to  her 
relief.  She  resolved  he  should  sit  there  no  more  that 
night.  Making  a  pallet  for  and  placing  the  oldest  child 
at  her  feet  with  rug  and  shawl,  she  stretched  herself  along 
the  seat  with  the  little  one  closely  clasped  in  her  arms, 
covered  her  head  and  feigned  sleep,  in  less  time  than  it 
takes  to  write   of  the  proceeding. 

After  awhile  her  late  companion  was  heard  in  his  de- 
layed attempt  to  reach  the  seat  once  more.  Smothered 
curses  followed  his  stumbling  awkwardness,  as  one  after 
another  was  forced  to  rise  in  the  aisle  and  let  him  go  by. 

"Beg  yer  pardon,  old  fel;  it's  mighty  bad  to  make  yer 
get  up  this  way — but  I  shan't  bother  you  agin.  I'm  only 
trying  to  git  out'n  yer  way,  back  to  my  seat  up  yonder!" 

Mrs.  M.  could  measure  his  approach  by  the  surly  flings 
and  good-natured  jokes  that  accompanied  him — until  she 
felt  him  stumble  against  the  door — rattling  the  bolt  as  he 
caught  it  to  save  himself  a  fall.  Once,  twice,  three  times 
he  called  her  name.  Then  he  stooped  over  and  called  her 
again.  No  answer.  Some  soldiers  nearby  began  to  read 
between  the  lines,  and  cried  out:  "What's  yer  doing? 
That  lady's  asleep,  I  expect.  Better  let  her  alone,  if  she 
ain't    any    of   your   folks." 

Mrs.  M.  felt  herself  an  arrant  imposter,  but  she  gained 
her  own  consent  to  snore— if  her  apparent  condition  of 
sleep  was  further  disputed.  She  photographed  the  scene 
in  memory  (because  she  could  not  see)  to  laugh  over  it  a 
thousand  times  after  the  war  closed— but  there  was  not 
a  figment  of  merriment  in  her  brain  at  the  time.  She  felt 
desperate  and  had  resolved  to  make  public  explanation 
of  her  dislike  and  the  reason  therefor,  then  and  there,  if 
the  seat  was  not  relinquished  without  such  an  effort  being 
required  at  her  hand. 

At  last  the  drunken  man  decided  to  give  up  the  whole 
matter  as  a  bad  job,  saying,  as  he  retired:  "Well,  I'll  get 
a  seat  when  we  are  at  Millen,  see  if  I  don't?"  Mrs.  M. 
saw   him   no   more. 

Millen  was  reached  at  midnight.  The  conductor  bade 
Mrs.  M.  to  stay  beside  him  with  the  children  during  the 
transfer  from  one  train  to  the  other.  But  when  the  cars 
for  Augusta  were  reached  there  was  not  even  standing 
room  in  the  ladies'  car.    There  was  nothing  to  be  done  but 

276 


crowd  into  a  soldier  car  and  risk  the  accommodations, 
whatever  might  be  found  therein. 

It  was  dark  as  Egypt  inside.  Oil  and  candles  were  too 
dear  and  scarce  to  waste  on  a  soldier  train.  It  was  dismal 
indeed  when  the  poor  lady  found  herself  and  one  child  in 
a  seat  relinquished  by  a  soldier  whose  face  she  couldn't 
see  when  she  thanked  him,  and  little  Maud  was  lifted  by 
some  unknown  person's  hands  to  a  seat  beside  her.  Her 
feet  were  blocked  by  her  own  luggage  that  the  conductor 
had  brought  inside  the  door  and  asked  some  person  (also 
unknown)  to  place  near  the  lady  with  two  children. 

The  coach  had  been  in  a  wreck  at  some  time.  The 
windows  were  shattered  in  some  places.  They  let  in  the 
cold  night  air,  that  chilled  her  through  and  through,  after 
coming  out  of  the  Russian  sweat  bath  they  had  just  left 
behind — with  all  the  windows  down  and  in  good  order — 
so  far  as  closing  the  car  was  concerned  for  passengers. 

As  they  whirled  along  in  the  midnight  darkness,  it 
seemed  as  if  she  was  in  a  mad  rush  to  destruction.  The 
only  light  was  the  conductor's  lantern,  at  rare  intervals, 
as  he  made  his  trips  through  the  train  during  the  remain- 
der of  the  night.  Gloom  and  danger  seemed  intensified 
after  he  disappeared.  She  braced  herself  constantly  to 
hold  herself  on  the  seat,  with  the  children  clinging  to 
her  in  a  panic  of  fright.  Again  and  again  the  jarring, 
jumping,  pitching  process  was  repeated  as  the  train  rocked 
around  curves  and  dashed  onward  with  every  window 
sash  rattling  and  the  frame  work  creaking.  Then  she 
began  thinking  rapidly;  in  fact  her  thinking  apparatus 
went  on  a  rampage.  Every  faculty  of  mind  and  heart 
was  in  a  strain.  Here  she  was,  alone,  in  a  death  trap, 
perhaps,  with  those  dear  little  babes.  Perhaps  her  mother 
was  dead — maybe  her  husband  was  a  corpse  on  the  battle- 
field, for  the  last  paper  had  said  there  was  constant  skirm- 
ishing. Suppose  Gen.  Sherman  was  now  awaiting  this 
very  train  to  cut  off  reinforcements  and  should  Are  on  this 
very  car  to  call  a  halt?  Suppose  she  was  cut  off,  couldn't 
go  back  to  the  old,  distasteful  shelter,  and  no  way  to  get 
into  Carolina? 

Everything  that  had  happened  to  her  in  life  crossed  her 
mind.  She  recalled  herself  a  merry-hearted  girl  in  that  far 
away  Kentucky  home,  a  maiden  at  school,  a  bride  at  the 
altar,   a    mother  in   luxurious   Louisville   mansion. 

Now  all  was  black,  uncertain,  miserable!  A  stranger  in 
a  strange  land — an  exile- — almost  penniless!  If  this  crazy, 
pitching  car  should  break  down  and  hurl  them  to  destruc- 
tion, her  body  would  probably  never  be  identified  or 
claimed.  As  she  clutched  the  little  one  in  a  convulsive 
grasp — they  screamed  together — at  her  sob  of  despair. 
"What's  the  matter  lady?"  said  the  voice  at  her  side. 
"Let  me  take  the  baby.  I  am  only  a  rough  old  soldier, 
but  I  do  love  the  little  folks.     My  mother  always  told  me 

277 


I  was  the  best  nurse  of  any  of  her  boys.  I've  been  think- 
ing all  this  time  of  my  mother  since  you  came  in.  I'd 
give  a  pretty  to  see  her  dear  old  face  again." 

Was  it  a  gleam  of  star-light  that  entered  Mrs.  M.'s  mind? 
What  made  her  turn  the  baby  into  the  soldier's  arms  with 
tremulous  thanks. 

The  scene  was  all  changed,  and  yet  there  was  no  change 
in  her  hazardous  situation.  They  were  still  rushing  along 
— pitching  forward  and  jerking  backward  like  mad.  There 
wasn't  enough  light  to  see  little  Maud's  face — as  close  as 
it  was  to  her  own — but  that  paralyzing  fear  was  all  gone. 
Directly  she  knew  all  about  the  soldier's  regiment,  his 
home,  his  mother  and  his  present  destination.  In  turn 
he  promised  to  go  to  her  husband's  command  and  tell  him 
of  this  change  in  her  location,  aye,  she  would  also  send 
a  few  lines  herself  when  daylight  came. 

The  babe  was  quiet  in  the  soldier's  arms  as  they  talked. 
When  the  child  stirred  the  soldier  hummed  a  tune  to 
keep  it  quite  still.  The  mother  recognized  the  old  hymn 
that  fits  so  nicely  to  "How  Firm  a  Foundation  Ye  Saints 
of  the  Lord."  As  he  hummed  the  tune  she  joined  softly 
with  the  words.  The  sentiment  fitted  her  mental  state 
exactly.  After  a  little  others  added  their  voices  also,  until 
the  rattling  car  was  filled  with  a  swelling  tide  of  melody, 
When  through  the  deep  waters  I  call  thee  to  go 
The  rivers  of  woe  shall  not  thee  o'erflow, 
made  by  scores  of  lips  and  hearts,  brought  tears  to  Mrs. 
M.'s  eyes  and  she  found  herself  weeping  from  joy — aye, 
rapture!  Verse  after  verse  followed — the  last  one  re- 
peated more  than  once. 

As  if  to  give  sanction  to  this  midnight  worship  and 
sympathy  of  human  hearts — the  moon  rose  in  the  eastern 
sky — sprung  upward  as  they  left  a  deep  ravine  and 
whirled  along  the  smooth  level  country,  that  now  looked 
like  a  sea  of  molten  silver  under  the  hoar  frost  that  rested 
on  shrub  and  leaf — stretching  far  away  to  either  side  of 
the  railroad  track.  With  darkness  gloom  had  also  fled 
away. 

The  engine  whistled,  the  train  jolted,  jerked,  rattled  and 
swayed  from  side  to  side,  but  the  old  car  was  alive  with 
merry  laugh  and  jest.  The  soldiers  were  the  merriest  in 
the  land.  They  had  jokes  for  every  stay-at-home  as  they 
halted  at  depots  and  stations.  "What's  the  price  of  butter- 
milk?" was  the  greeting  to  an  agent  who  stood  shivering 
with  high-crown  hat  on,  in  the  dim  light  of  early  morning. 
"Can't  tell  you,  sir,"  was  the  reply.  "Our  cows  are  gone 
dry."  With  a  unanimous  shout  of  laughter,  the  crowd 
yelled  out:  "That's  the  reason  you  are  wearing  the  churn 
on  your  head,  is  it?" 

But  the  whistle  blows:  again  the  train  moves  and  ere 
long  Augusta  comes  in  sight.  Mrs.  M.  bade  the  boys  good- 
bye with  a  heart  full  of  tender  sympathy.    So  long  as  she 

278 


could  see  them,  as  the  train  rolled  away,  they  waved  their 
caps  and  signalled  good-bye,  with  a  "rebel  yell"  at  the 
last  turn  of  the  road.  A  touch  of  nature  makes  the  world 
akin. 


ORIGINAL  COMMUNICATIONS. 

(Read   before    the   Georgia   Sociological    Society,   Atlanta, 
June,  1902). 

The    Problems   that    Interest    Motherhood. 

By   Mrs.  W.   H.  Felton, 
Cartersville,   Ga. 


My  appearance  before  this  audience  to-day  stands  for  no 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  science  of  medicine,  or 
knowledge  of  the  questions  which  you  discuss  so  ably. 
I  am  only  a  learner — and  my  eager  interest  in  these  mat- 
ters no  doubt  influenced  your  President  to  extend  to  me 
an  invitation  to  appear  and  explain  my  reason  for  this 
interest.  Three  years  ago  I  made  an  address  on  this 
subject  before  the  Woman's  Club  of  Atlanta,  and  in  1897 
sent  a  paper  to  be  read  before  the  Mother's  Congress  in 
Washington  City.  My  greatest  regret  is  my  inability  to 
awaken  a  lively  interest  in  the  minds  of  the  mothers  of 
the  country  on  this  and  kindred  subjects;  because  I  feel 
sure  if  the  subject  could  be  presented  in  force  and  perti- 
nence there  would  be  an  awakening  that  would  show 
itself  in  every  home  in  this  broad  land  of  ours. 

I  agree  with  your  President,  that  all  human  life  is  in- 
fluenced by  heredity;  by  training  and  environment  in  the 
order  here  named.  Heredity  comes  first.  Mothers  should 
have  some  conception  of  the  part  they  play  in  life's  drama, 
when  every  child  must  have  a  mother,  and  when  every 
child's  life  is  unavoidably  shaped  by  the  mother's  nature, 
her  health,  her  tempers  and  idiosyncrasies.  She  herself 
is  the  repository  of  the  ills  and  benefits  resulting  from 
close  relation  to  her  ancestry — those  who  handed  them 
down  to  her.  There  are  legacies  handed  down — ■ 
bequeathed — that  would  shock  and  startle  many  of  us  if 
we  could  trace  the  end  back  to  the  beginning. 

But  our  young  women,  about  to  step  into  matrimony, 
know  less  of  themselves  and  what  is  involved  in  parental 
relations,  than  any  other  subject  heretofore  considered  by 
them.  Their  previous  education  is  all  away  from  the 
subject  rather  than  towards  them.  Children  are  being 
born  into  this  world  every  day,  every  hour,  aye,  every 
minute,  and  I  feel  sure  that  nine-tenths  of  the  mothers 
know  less  about  the  influences  that  will  make  or  mar  the 
physical,  mental   and  moral  destiny  of  those   they   bring 

279 


into  the  world  than  any  other  subject  that  interests  them. 
This  ignorance  is  alarming.  When  stock-raisers,  fruit- 
growers, seedsmen  and  everybody  interested  in  such  busi- 
ness matters  are  so  scrupulously  exact  in  securing  proper 
reproduction,  the  destinies  of  their  own  children  and 
grandchildren  are  put  aside  in  the  most  indifferent  way; 
and  alliances  are  contracted  in  the  most  haphazard  style. 
Truly,  marriage  is  a  lottery. 

People  move  into  new  neighborhoods;  settle  in  hard 
localities;  invest  their  money  and  spend  their  time  in  get- 
ting money,  when  their  children  and  grandchildren  have 
scarcely  a  thought  as  to  proper  associates  and  those  they 
will  mate  with,  because  they  will  mate  at  mating  time; 
and  the  mates  will  be  found  generally  where  they  chance 
to  be  associated.  This  is  the  rule — almost  without  ex- 
ception. 

If  a  piece  of  real  estate  is  purchased,  a  lawyer  is  hired 
to  trace  the  title,  and  the  utmost  care  is  taken  to  be  sure, 
before  the  money  is  paid  over;  but  when  the  daughter 
falls  in  love  with  an  unknown  lover,  and  maybe  marries  a 
whited  sepulcher,  with  a  fair  outside,  but  full  of  inherited 
rottenness  and  dead  men's  evils,  what  comfort  or  happi- 
ness or  peace  of  mind  will  attend  the  mother,  after  such  a 
disaster? 

Why  it  is  that  the  world  does  not  recognize  the  fact, 
that  motherhood  and  all  the  problems  of  human  life  are 
indissolubly  connected  and  cannot  be  divorced,  since  every 
human  being  must  have  its  mother? 

With  the  snows  of  sixty  winters  drifting  down  on  my 
head,  and  my  steps  going  down  the  sunset  slope  of  life,  I 
come  to  you,  to  add  my  word  of  approval  to  your  under- 
taking, and  to  beg  you  to  so  broaden  the  scope  of  your 
organization  that  intelligent  womanhood  may  be  in- 
structed, entreated  and  warned  on  the  subjects  in  which 
their  interest  is  so  great,  with  influences  so  potential. 

For  two  decades  I  have  lifted  my  small  voice  in  Georgia 
towns  and  cities  to  plead  against  the  crime  of  forcing 
little  children  without  their  own  consent,  into  drunken 
homes  and  entailing  on  their  little  lives  the  curse  that 
travels  along  with  inebriety  and  debauchery.  I  have  been 
called  "a  fanatic,  a  crank,  strong-minded,  out  of  my 
sphere,"  and  many  names  of  that  sort,  because  I  cried 
aloud  for  home  protection  to  the  mothers  of  such  children; 
but  standing  as  I  do  in  the  sight  of  God  and  in  the  presence 
of  this  distinguished  company,  I  affirm,  as  my  honest  con- 
viction, that  no  greater  service  can  be  done  for  the  human 
family — without  regard  to  sex — than  the  protection  of 
unborn  children  from  the  evils — inherited  evils — that  go 
with  drunkenness;  and  this  protection  must  come  through 
the  united  efforts  of  the  mothers  and.  fathers  of  these 
children. 

280 


How  many  families  can  you  call  to  mind,  who,  after 
twenty-five  years  of  marital  union,  can  present  a  clean 
bill  of  health — moral,  mental  and  physical?  Without 
deformity,  insanity,  drunkenness,  immorality  and  crime? 
Tons  of  writing-paper  have  been  devoted  to  the  proper 
training  of  children;  and  pulpits  have  thundered  for  a 
full  century  on  the  curses  that  follow  to  the  third  and 
fourth  generation;  but  how  little  has  been  said  or  written 
or  preached  about  the  proper  trainnig  of  fathers  and  the 
needful  instruction  of  mothers  in  the  greatest  calling  ever 
followed  or  pursued  under  the  shining  dome  of  Heaven! 

Mothers  hold  the  race-endowing  function  in  themselves. 
The  Lord  Almighty  decreed  it.  This  function  is  at  once 
the  greatest  mystery  and  the  grandest  work  ever  confided 
to  human  kind;  but  nine-tenths  of  the  women — may  I  not 
say  ninety-hundredths — know  no  more  of  the  dangers  that 
attend  the  destinies  of  the  unborn  child,  or  of  their  own 
intimate  relation  to  reproduction  of  their  own  kind,  than 
the  birds  in  the  air  or  fishes  in  the  sea.  I  blame  mothers 
for  much  of  this  ignorance — but  much  of  it  also  belongs 
to  the  apathy  and  indifference  of  the  public.  No  stream 
rises  higher  than  its  source.  The  mother  can  only  give 
her  child  what  she  herself  possesses.  Oh!  that  we  might 
reckon  in  the  list  of  virtues  the  uncommon  attribute  of 
common  sense  on  these  subjects. 

Mothers  have  been  trained,  unfortunately,  to  a  system 
of  false  modesty  and  unwholesome  avoidance  of  this  and 
kindred  subjects.  Why  should  not  they  instruct  their 
daughters,  aye,  their  sons,  as  the  king's  chamberlain 
tutored  Esther  before  she  was  wedded  to  Ahasuerus?  Oh! 
it  is  pitiful  to  know  that  a  young  girl  is  pushed  out  of 
the  home  nest  to  flutter  in  dismay  and  too  often  to  perish 
on  the  ground  at  last!  How  is  she  to  know  without  a 
teacher,  and  what  teacher  so  proper,  so  tender,  so  sym- 
pathetic and  so  loyal  as  her  own  parents? 

There  were  thirteen  thousand  divorce  cases  in  New 
York  city  alone  in  the  year  1897.  That  tells  a  tale  of 
failure,  defeat,  disappointment,  mismating,  that  needs  no 
comment;   and  it  is  so  all  over  the  land. 

When  the  census  of  1890  was  taken  there  were  700,000 
defectives  in  the  United  States — blind,  deaf,  deformed, 
insane,  imbecile,  epileptic,  etc.  That  is  another  story  that 
needs  no  explanation  in  this  presence. 

I  believe  as  firmly  as  my  mind  can  grasp  the  condition, 
that  the  negro's  education  in  books  has  been  largely  un- 
productive of  good  results,  because  it  antedated  the  proper 
training  of  the  mothers  in  their  lewd  homes. 

This  land  is  burdened  with  convicts  and  ex-convicts,  the 
latter  without  character  or  credit,  after  they  are  turned 
loose  on  the  community.  These  lewd  homes  are  continual 
crime-promoters.  They  pull  down  faster  than  book  educa- 
tion can  build  up.     If  I  could  only  whisper  a  word  in  Mr. 

281 


v/ 


Carnegie's  willing  ear,  I'd  say,  spend  some  of  your  money 
on  reformatories  for  ignorant  women  and  girls,  who 
should  never  be  permitted  to  marry  or  propagate  their 
kind    until    good    character    shall   have    been    established. 

This  brings  me  to  the  question  of  indiscriminate  mar- 
riage licenses.  A  health  certificate  should  have  been 
required  a  hundred  years  ago.  No  honorable  man  would 
be  willing  to  enter  the  parental  state  when  his  physical 
conditions  failed  to  warrant  reproduction  under  their  in- 
fluence and  sway.  Those  who  would  disregard  the  res- 
triction should  be  legally  restrained,  for  public  safety,  in 
view  of  public  expense. 

Now  that  the  State  has  assumed  the  burden  of  educating 
the  child  independent  of  its  parents,  it  should  be  given 
discretionary  powers  to  forbid  the  spawning  of  an  inter- 
minable horde  of  defectives  with  inherited  evils  of  mind 
and  body.  Begin  at  the  beginning.  Reform  where  it  needs 
reformation.  The  running  stream  can  be  diverted  when  it 
is  a  brook.  After  it  becomes  the  river,  it  must  go  its  own 
way.  Hereditary  characteristics  are  transmitted.  There 
is  no  question  about  it.  Some  weeks  ago  statistics  were 
given  in  New  York  State  as  to  the  progeny  of  a  woman 
who  died  in  1828.  She  had  800  known  descendants.  Nine- 
tenths  were  criminals,  as  she  had  been  a  criminal;  some 
hundreds  were  diseased  in  various  ways;  many  were  hung 
— some  died  serving  life-sentences;  and  the  State  spent 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  dollars  in  convicting  and 
punishing  that  woman's  descendants.  You  all  read  her 
history,  I  presume.  If  her  crime  had  made  her  immune  to 
child-bearing,  then  she  would  have  been  less  inimical  to 
public  safety  and  spared  some  physical  suffering  also.  She 
was  an  unfit  person  to  fling  800  of  her  own  dangerous  class 
upon  the  public  purse,  and  her  descendants  were  a  curse 
to  the  population  upon  which  she  and  those  like  her  were 
permitted  to  spawn  them.  There  can  be  no  question  as 
to  the  duty  of  the  State  to  protect  itself  from  this  indis- 
criminate spawning,  and  to  protect  itself  from  indiscrimi- 
nate marriage  licenses.  Your  organization  has  authority 
to  make  itself  heard  before  legislative  committees.  Why 
not  inaugurate  the  movement  yourselves? 

I  believe  the  State  should  require  due  notice  to  be  given 
of  an  intended  marriage.  You  all  understand  that  you 
cannot  buy  a  piece  of  land  from  an  administrator  of  an 
estate  without  publishing  it  for  weeks  in  a  public  gazette. 
He  must  get  leave  to  sell  and  then  give  equal  notice  of 
proposed  sale;  but  any  chap  that  can  beg  or  borrow  a 
dollar  and  a  half  and  will  swear  that  the  parties  are  of 
legal  age,  can  go  to  the  ordinary's  office  between  dark 
and  day-light,  and  buy  a  permit  to  marry  a  woman  who 
may  have  800  descendants,  good,  bad  or  indifferent,  within 
her  allotted  period  of  reproduction.  Fifty  years  from  now 
public  opinion  will  stand  aghast  at  the  liberty  that  is  now 

282 


allowed  to  lust  and  liquor.  When  a  money  purchase  is 
involved  (as  the  sale  of  land  goes  to  show)  you  strain  at 
gnats,  gentlemen,  but  when  the  fate  of  unborn  millions 
hangs  in  the  balance  you  swallow  camels,  and  never 
make  a  wry  face  at  the  swallow. 

Motherhood  is  now  asking  itself  why  these  things  have 
been  so  long  overlooked — why  the  protection  to  its  high 
and  holy  calling  has  been  so  long  delayed. 

Public  thought  must  be  awakened!  Agitation  is  im- 
perative for  these  reforms.  Nothing  can  be  done  until 
the  people  begin  to  think.  Perhaps  your  are  living  ahead 
of  your  time.  I  feel  sure  I  have  been  working  with  a  small 
pick  and  shovel  for  twenty  years  at  least,  with  small  evi- 
dence of  progress;  but  you  know  and  I  know  that  we  are 
confronted  with  race  problems  and  all  other  sorts  of  pro- 
blems, all  of  which  alarm  the  patriot  and  the  taxpayer. 

We  are  living  in  an  era  of  mob  violence  which  is  omin- 
ous. We  seem  to  hear  the  earth's  tremblings  that  may 
culminate  in  a  San  Domingo  or  a  Mont  Pelee  disaster. 
May  God  help  the  helpless  and  innocent! 

As  I  believe  in  eternal  justice,  truth  and  mercy,  I  do 
believe  we  must  begin  reforms  at  the  starting  place,  and 
remodel  our  permits  to  marry,  and  permits  to  sell  crime- 
promoters  and  stand  firm  like  Zerubbabel  in  the  rebuilding 
of  our  earthly  Jerusalem,  or  we  will,  ere  we  know  it,  find 
a  Mont  Pelee  right  in  our  midst,  with  all  that  attends 
such  an  eruption  in  disaster. 

To  you,  gentlemen,  who  are  so  closely  in  touch  with  the 
great  problems  that  touch  mother-life  and  mother-love,  I 
bring  this  reminder  to-day.  Throw  around  this  high  and 
holy  calling  the  protection  it  needs  and  would  call  for 
if  it  was  awake  to  its  danger.  It  is  the  hope  of  the  nation. 
It  is  the  anchor  against  mob  violence.  It  is  the  home-life 
of  America  to-day  that  holds  the  ship  to  the  safe  points 
of  the  compass. 

It  is  at  the  very  foundation  of  race  troubles.  When 
colored  homes  are  reformed  from  their  profligate  popula- 
tion, and  clean  living  prevails  rather  than  dissolute  and 
shameless  reproduction,  we  will  see  that  it  can  only  be 
done  by  shutting  off  opportunities  for  infanticide  and 
indecent  prostitution  among  the  mothers  of  the  colored 
race.  But  all  the  crime  does  not  come  from  the  sub- 
merged world.  Like  the  frogs  and  flies  in  Egypt,  sin, 
evil  and  moral  disease  go  up  into  the  palaces  as  well  as 
the  hovels.  There  must  be  a  general  provision  to  reach 
crimes  against  motherhood — no  matter  where  discovered. 

In  the  year  1874  the  State  had  many  less  than  four 
hundred  convicts  to  turn  over  to  the  lease  system.  We 
established  public  schools  a  little  before  that  time.  We 
have  run  along  the  succeeding  years  with  both  systems  in 
full  blast — both  costing  a  mountain  of  money.  In  1901 
we  had  four  thousand  negro  convicts  and  misdemeanors, 


and  about  four  hundred  whites.  Now  what  is  the  matter 
with  us  anyhow!  Where  will  we  end  up  at  this  gait  we 
are  going?  If  we  had  clear  vision  to  the  horizon  we  would 
see  that  one  system  tears  down  faster  than  the  other  can 
build  up.     Something  is  radically  wrong  somewhere. 

I  may  be  mistaken — I  know  I  am  liable  to  mistakes; 
but  I  do  believe  we  should  shut  the  door  on  the  reproduc- 
tion of  the  species  that  continues  to  fill  chain-gangs,  and 
apply  some  of  this  school  money  to  reformatories  where 
they  do  not  marry  and  are  not  given  in  marriage  until 
they  can  present  a  clean  bill  of  moral  health,  at  least. 

An  illegitimate  child  should  send  both  parents  to  the 
rock-pile,  and  a  seducer  of  innocent  girls  should  have  a 
life-term  at  hard  work;  fully  as  much  penalty  as  the  get- 
ting of  money  on  false  pretenses,  by  theft  or  by  murder, 
because  two  lives  have  been  sacrified  to  the  baser  pas- 
sions of  the  betrayer. 

Oh!  that  the  world  would  wake  up  to  this  needed  pro- 
tection to  the  unborn  child  which  is  forced  into  life,  with- 
out any  consent  of  its  own,  and  its  very  life  made  the  foot- 
ball of  the  vicious  and  depraved  progenitor! 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  this  courtesy  and  attention. 
May  my  words  find  an  echo  in  every  true  man's  and 
woman's  heart  that  hears  me  to-day. 


FROM    MRS.   FELTON. 


The  following  eloquent  and  stirring  letter  from  this  bril- 
liant crusader  in  the  cause  of  temperance,  was  written 
last  fall,  just  before  the  Convention  in  Madison,  as  will  be 
seen  by  its  contents: 

My  Dear  Mrs.  Ansley:  Your  kind  request  that  I  should 
send  you  something  touching  the  earlier  efforts  of  the 
W.  C.  T.  U.  in  Georgia,  particularly  as  to  their  influence 
on  legislation,  has  been  received. 

In  the  spring  of  1886,  I  attended  the  State  Convention, 
held  that  year  in  the  city  of  Macon,  Ga.  I  joined  the 
W.  C.  T.  Union  in  that  year. 

I  introduced  a  resolution,  looking  to  a  reform  in  the 
Convict  Lease  System  of  Georgia,  and  induced  Rev.  W. 
H.  Potter,  who  was  then  Editor  of  the  Wesleyan  Christian 
Advocate,  to  follow  my  resolution  with  his  endorsement. 
I  was  authorized  to  write  and  present  a  memorial  petition 
to  the  Georgia  Legislature,  setting  forth,  so  far  as  I  could, 
the  horrors  of  the  Lease  System,  particularly  condemning 
the  herding  of  women  convicts  along  with  the  male 
criminals,  and  the  constant  contact  of  juvenile  criminals 
with  veterans  in  crime.    A  legislative  report,  made  in  1879 

284 


and  printed  in  the  proceedings  of  that  year's  General  As- 
sembly, gave  forth  the  astounding  fact  that  twnty-five 
little  children,  under  three  years  of  age,  were  then  in 
camp,  along  with  their  convict  mothers,  little  helpless 
innocents,  born  in  the  chain  gang,  in  the  lowest  depths 
of  degraded  humanity.  These  children,  according  to  the 
report  mentioned,  were  born  from  convict  mothers,  were 
also  the  offspring  of  the  guards,  (employed  by  the  Lessees 
to  punish  all  offenders,)  who  had  basely  used  their  author- 
ity to  compel  these  women  to  submit  to  their  carnal 
desires.  This  state  of  things  was  so  plainly  horrible  that 
I  wrote  it  up  in  the  newspapers  at  the  time  this  legislative 
report  was  published,  namely,  1879.  The  author  of  this 
legislative  report  and  also  Chairman  of  the  Investigating 
Committee,  Col.  Bob  Alston,  came  to  see  Dr.  Felton  and 
myself  in  the  National  Hotel  in  Washington  City  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1879,  and  told  me  that  his  life  had  been  threatened 
by  certain  parties  who  were  connected  with  the  Lease,  and 
that  he  had  received  a  letter  from  his  wife  that  morning, 
who  was  very  uneasy  and  unhappy  on  his  account;  that 
certain  women  whose  husbands  were  making  fortunes  out 
of  the  Lease,  were  not  only  defiant,  but  talking  big  of 
what  would  be  done  to  people  who  meddled  with  their 
husbands'  business,  etc.  He  walked  the  floor  and  said  he 
had  never  encountered  such  enmity  in  his  life.  In  a  few 
weeks  he  was  assassinated  in  the  State  Capitol  in  Atlanta, 
shot  down  by  a  sub-lessee  in  the  office  of  the  State  Treas- 
urer, his  life  blood  spattering  the  very  walls  of  the 
strong-box  of  Georgia  as  he  fell  to  the  floor.  He  had 
appealed  to  Gov.  Colquitt,  told  him  that  morning  that  he 
was  being  hunted  down  by  this  man,  afterwards  his  slayer. 
My  husband,  as  a  member  of  Congress  from  Georgia, 
was  assailed  in  the  newspapers  by  a  United  States  Sena- 
tor, himself  a  lessee  of  the  state  Convicts  and  the  head 
of  one  of  these  lease  companies.  In  replying  to  his  attack, 
Dr.  Felton  exposed  his  connection  with  these  infamies, 
connected  with  the  Lease  System.  When  Dr.  Felton 
offered  again  for  Congress  in  1880,  every  lessee — bent  his 
every  energy  to  silence  him  in  Washington  City  and  retire 
him  from  public  life  in  the  state.  He  was  counted  out  in 
the  election,  and,  as  poor  Bob  Alston  was  in  his  grave,  the 
lessees  believed  they  were  in  the  saddle  and  all  opponents 
silenced.  The  people  of  Bartow  County  persuaded  Dr. 
Felton  to  represent  them  in  the  Georgia  Legislature,  and 
he  was  there  when  my  Memorial  from  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  was 
presented  to  the  General  Assembly.  He  fathered  the  move- 
ment in  that  body,  and,  together,  we  opened  up  the  war 
on  the  horrible  Lease  System,  which  was  abolished  a  few 
years  ago,  amid  the  execrations  and  loud  denunciations  of 
all  sane  and  sensible  men  in  Georgia.  It  was  stamped 
upon  as  the  most  infamous  combination  of  public  graft 
ever  known  to  the  state,  the  Yazoo  Fraud  not  excepted. 

285 


But  it  placed  three  men  in  the  United  States  Senate,  and 
elected  two  of  them  to  the  Governor's  chair  in  Georgia, 
and  it  was  the  money  and  base  influence  of  this  Lease 
System  which  fastened  this  vile  Octopus  on  the  tax-payers 
of  the  state  for  twenty  years  afterwards,  I  mean  after  I 
was  commissioned  by  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  of  Georgia  to  Memo- 
rialize the  Legislature  at  its  State  Convention  in  the  year 
1886.  These  Lessees  named  congressmen,  they  ruled  the 
politics  of  the  state,  and  it  seemed  so  strongly  entrenched 
that  any  opposition  was  futile. 

Dr.  Felton  pressed  and  advocated  a  reformatory  for 
juveniles  before  the  Legislature,  and,  not  only  was  he 
attacked  by  Lessees'  influence,  but  I,  myself,  a  woman 
without  a  ballot,  and  no  weapon  but  an  active  pen,  was 
attacked  in  that  legislative  body,  because  I  obeyed  the 
mandate  of  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  and  presented  the  Memorial, 
which  aroused  the  anger  and  antipathy  of  these  rich 
Lessees  and  their  satellites.  i/13ut  this  Memorial  paved  the 
way  to  broader  reasoning  and  fuller  examination  of  this 
terrible  Lease  System,  which  was  described  in  London, 
England,  time  and  again  as  "A  cancer  sore  on  the  war- 
stricken  South,"  a  blot  on  our  fair  name,  as  a  section,  and 
a  withering  blight  and  menace  to  our  civilization.  Words 
were  not  adequate  to  express  their  contempt  and  disgust 
for  the  infamous  political  combination  which  sentenced 
thousands  of  negroes  to  the  pen  that  these  men  might 
rake  in  millions  of  profit  from  their  labor  and  their  misery. 

Fifty  years  from  now  the  name  of  every  man  who  filled 
his  pockets  with  this  vile  lease  money  extorted  by  the 
State's  injustice  from  its  dependent  and  criminal  classes, 
will  be  so  mortifying  to  his  descendants  that  they  will 
eschew  their  very  parentage  as  the  descendants  of  the 
Yazoo  Fraud  swindle  are  forced  to  conceal  the  infamy 
placed  upon  the  men  who  sold  their  votes  for  gold,  land 
and  negroes  when  that  Yazoo  Fraud  was  perpetrated. 

Acting  for  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  of  Georgia,  as  their  agent, 
as  their  messenger,  I  led  the  way  to  reform  and,  although 
it  was  secretly  consummated,  yet  those  negro  women  con- 
victs were  removed  from  association  with  males  in  convict 
caps,  and,  as  I  was  told,  employed  at  broom  making  in  a 
separate  camp,  and  this  removal  occurred  about  the  year 
1890  or  1892. 

If  I  had  not  been  given  liberty  to  approach  the  Legis- 
lature by  your  organization,  no  one  can  tell  how  long  the 
movement  might  have  been  delayed.  This  is  one  move- 
ment affecting  Legislation  in  Georgia  which  is  clearly 
traceable  in  its  beginning  to  your  authority — you  deserve 
the  credit — and  should  boldly  lay  claim  to  it. 

A  few  days  ago  a  convict  white  woman  was  so  severely 
beaten  in  the  Atlanta  convict  camps  that  someone  re- 
ported the  outrage.  She  was  given  110  lashes  on  her  body 
by   a   white   whipping-boss.     He   admits   he   inflicted   100 

286 


lashes  and  says  he  punished  her  for  cursing  and  obscene 
language.  While  I  am  a  foe  to  profanity  and  obscentiy, 
when  was  it  ever  known  before  that  a  brutal  guard  could 
ever  be  allowed  to  put  over  100  lashes  at  one  time  on  one 
poor  female's  body?  And  for  cursing!  As  it  is  well  known 
that  many  men,  outside  prison  camps  can  curse  and  go 
unwhipt  of  justice,  I  here  propose  to  your  Body,  now  in 
session,  that  you  sball  give  me  liberty  to  memorialize  our 
law  makers  at  their  next  meeting,  and  I  will  call  the 
State's  attention  to  this  outrageous  punishment.  It  is 
clearly  within  your  province  to  protest,  and,  while  I  have 
passed  seventy-five  years  of  age,  God  willing,  you  shall 
have  someone  to  bring  the  enormity  of  this  incident  to  the 
State's  attention,  and  I  ask  you  to  consider  your  duty  to 
your  sex  and  state.  And  the  brutal  woman-beater  was  not 
dismissed.  He  was  only  reprimanded  and  is  here  still, 
armed  with  a  whip,  and  prepared  to  beat  down  any  other 
white  or  negro  woman  who  uses  obscene  language  or 
curses  in  his  high  and  mighty  presence. 

As  a  pioneer  in  the  Temperance  Cause,  I  have  traveled 
from  my  home  in  the  gable  end  of  Georgia  to  many  and 
various  places,  towns  and  cities,  to  plead  for  prohibition 
in  years  gone  by.  I  went  forth  when  the  world  of  society 
looked  askant  at  a  woman  who  should  dare  to  go  out  on 
the  public  rostrum  and  plead  for  the  safety  of  her  people. 
The  Liquor  Demon  was  entrenched  in  every  city  in  Geor- 
gia when  this  little  David  gathered  a  pocket  full  of  small 
stones  from  the  brook  and  sallied  forth  to  meet  the 
enemy.  How  many  taunts  and  slanders,  and  covert  insi- 
nuations that  were  thrust  at  me,  eternity  alone  can  dis- 
cover. How  many  sneers  were  leveled  at  me,  I  perhaps 
will  never  know,  but  as  I  look  back  at  the  struggles  of  that 
early  period,  I  almost  tremble  to  remember  that  I  was  the 
target  of  such  entrenched  power  and  influence,  and  that 
their  slanderous  and  liquor-soaked  tongues  could  dissem- 
inate their  vile  hints  and  innuendoes  and  like  thistle 
down  in  the  wind,  scatter  them  everywhere — in  public 
or  in  secret.  I  here  thank  my  Heavenly  Father  that  He 
has  led  me  along  in  safety  and  that  I  live  and  can  con- 
gratulate you  upon  your  heroic  work  for  curbing  the 
Liquor  Traffic.  You  can  never  fully  estimate  at  this  time 
their  willingness  to  drag  everybody  down  to  the  level  of 
the  dram  shop.  Except  their  own  kith  and  kin,  they 
spared  nobody  in  their  effort  to  hold  to  their  ill-gotten 
gains. 

I  addressed  a  joint  committee  of  the  House  and  Senate 
in  behalf  of  the  Bush  Bill,  which  you  recollect,  and  heard 
a  man  get  up  and  say  he  would  rather  his  daughter  should 
marry  and  live  with  a  drunkard  than  curb  the  authority 
of  liquor  dealers  in  the  prosecution  of  their  unholy  traffic. 
To  that  complexion  had  it  come  in  Georgia! 

Two    successive   legislatures     in    Georgia   memorialized 

287 


Congress  to  repeal  the  infamous  Internal  Revenue  System, 
but  there  was  never  a  man  in  Congress  with  courage  suf- 
ficient to  rise  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
or  Senate  and  represent  the  wishes  of  the  citizens  of  the 
State  of  Georgia  on  this  subject.  When  I  went  before  a 
large  Atlanta  audience  at  a  State  W.  C.  T.  U.  Convention 
and  made  the  atrocities  of  this  Internal  Revenue  System 
so  plain  that  he  who  ran  might  read,  there  was  not  a  man 
in  Georgia,  save  the  lamented  Walter  B.  Hill,  of  precious 
memory,  who  dared  to  stand  on  the  same  platform  and 
echo  my  stinging  words  to  that  people.  Preachers  and 
pulpits — even  a  Bishop  of  my  own  church,  took  opposite 
sides  in  a  political  campaign  that  I  wrote  up  in  news- 
papers, and  avowed  his  opposition  to  any  sort  of  an  in- 
dependent  Prohibition    Campaign   in   Georgia. 

For  decades  the  people  of  Georgia  were  absolutely  ruled 
by  the  Lessees  of  Convicts  and  liquor  campaign  money. 
It  is  not  easy  sailing  now,  but  there  were  tides  and  break- 
ers innumerable  when  I  went  to  Atlanta,  Macon,  Thomas- 
ville — all  filled  with  liquor  dens,  to  utter  a  protest  against 
the  wholesale  slaughter  of  the  men  and  boys  of  this  coun- 
try.    This  was  pioneer  work — and  hard  work. 

I  went  to  Madison  when  there  were  two  government 
distilleries  in  full  blast,  and  nine  grog  shops  on  the  main 
street,  and  pleaded  like  a  woman  pleads  for  the  life  of 
her  child,  doomed  to  the  gallows.  It  was  my  dear  mother's 
county,  Morgan  county.  She  went  to  its  High  School  when 
she  was  a  girl.  Every  foot  of  the  soil  around  and  about 
Madison  today  is  dear  to  me.  My  kindred  are  living  there 
— my  dear  ones  are  buried  there,  and  every  pulse  in  my 
body  thrilled  with  these  memories  when  I  stood  in  a  tent 
the  day  before  the  election  and  plead  for  the  safety  of  the 
people  and  their  children.  There  were  fifteen  hundred 
voters,  one  thousand  of  them  negro  voters.  I  asked  that 
the  negro  men  and  women  might  be  allowed  and  a  section 
was  arranged  for  them  in  the  tent  as  I  requested.  I  plead 
with  them  for  their  own  safety  and  the  safety  of  their 
children,  and  when  I  reached  home  that  night  on  a  late 
train,  I  prayed  all  the  way,  that  God  might  save  and  bless 
Madison  and  Morgan  county.  Tired  to  almost  exhaustion, 
after  the  day's  work,  I  asked  God  on  my  knees  at  nearly 
midnight  to  bless  my  humble  efforts  at  next  day's  election. 
I  was  the  only  speaker  of  the  day — the  last  plea  was  the 
one  I  made,  and,  when  a  telegram  was  handed  me  late 
the  next  evening  after  the  election  was  over,  saying  Mor- 
gan county  had  given  four  hundred  majority  for  Prohibi- 
tion, I  was  limp  as  a  rag  from  fatigue,  but  I  was  ready  to 
shout  Hallalujah  to  God!   forever! 

Bear  my  good  wishes  to  the  Convention.  I  am  so  busy 
with  other  work  which  I  must  not  put  aside,  that  I  cannot 
be  with  you  at  this  meeting.  I  return  you  the  Minutes 
of  the  Eighth  Convention,  and  ask  that  you  hold   on  to 

288 


them  until  I  can  at  some  time  copy  the  address  I  made 
into  a  forthcoming  book,  which  I  am  to  publish,  God  being 
willing  to  continue  health  and  strength  for  the  work.  If 
you  have  an  opportunity  read  to  this  Convention  what  I 
said  at  Rome  so  many  years  ago.  I  think  it  will  bear  the 
test  and  I  stand  right  there  at  this  time. 

Mrs.  R.  A.  Felton. 


ADDRESS    MADE    IN    ATLANTA    AT    STATE    CONVEN- 
TION,   AFTER    PROHIBITION    HAD    BEEN    IN 
FORCE     TWO     YEARS     AND     WAS 
THEN    DEFEATED. 


Mrs.  Sibley,  our  belowed  State  President  wanted  me  to 
appear  before  you  at  this  hour.  I  felt  embarrassed  for 
more  than  one  reason.  But  in  the  presence  of  these  noble 
self-denying  women,  who  lay  aside  many  anxious  cares 
and  duties  to  meet  with  us,  I  felt  that  a  refusal  would  be 
more  embarrassing  than  to  make  the  effort.  I  can  at  least 
show  loyalty  to  the  cause  and  unite  my  efforts  however 
weak,  with  their  devotion  and  disinterestedness. 

I  speak  for  myself  and  do  not  presume  to  comment  or 
to  question  the  duty  of  other  wives  or  mothers.  .  I  recog- 
nize the  purity,  virtues  and  freedom  of  all  who  differ  with 
us  as  to  policy.  I  lay  no  claim  to  any  superior  excellence 
for  the  work.  My  conscience  and  my  duty  constrain  me. 
Whatever  of  failure  of  defect  of  judgment  I  may  risk, 
from  ignorance  and  inexperience,  yet  m.,  duty  as  I  see  it, 
lies  in  this  direction. 

Fully  measuring  the  work  by  the  orthodox  standard  of 
conservative  womanhood — weighing  with  deliberation  the 
difficulties  which  are  thrown  about  our  movement,  both 
North  and  South — understanding  as  I  do  the  criticism  we 
encounter  in  meeting  together  as  an  organization,  criti- 
cism that  is  hard  to  ignore  when  it  comes  through  chan- 
nels that  we  are  accustomed  to  revere  and  respect  and 
conscious  that  public  opinion  has  not  fully  joined  itself  to 
the  understanding — and  like  all  other  reformers,  we  find 
rough  places  for  our  feet  and  difficult  work  for  our  hands 
and  hearts,  still  I  can  bear  witness,  that  this  temperance 
work  is  a  comforting  one — its  rewards  are  satisfying  and 
its  hopes  brighten  with  every  succeeding  year.  The  resolve 
itself — makes  you  better,  in  that  it  meets  the  approval 
of  your  conscience.  When  I  compare  our  appeal  to  young 
men,  for  total  abstinence — with  the  champagne  toasts  at  a 
convivial  gathering, — with  all  that  the  wine  may  bring 
in  its  train,  I  feel  like  the  temperance  work  is  a  foretaste 
of  heaven  in  comparison  with  the  other  aims  and  its  privi- 
leges.    Believe  me  I  esteem  it  a  higher  privilege  to  stand 

289 


at  the  door  of  a  liquor  saloon  and  plead  with  your  way- 
ward son  rather  than  to  be  recognized  over  the  wine  cup 
as  a  fashionable  leader  in  society.  Oh!  mothers,  sisters, 
wives,  daughters,  while  there  is  no  blight  which  can  so 
fatally  wither  your  domestic  happiness  as  the  awful  curse 
of  drunkenness,  and  if  like  Asmodeus  we  could  uncover  the 
roofs,  and  gain  a  private  view  into  homes  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  this  country  and  understand  the  anguish — the 
desolation — the  apprehension  and  the  hidden  crimes  which 
attend  the  sale  and  use  of  intoxicating  drinks,  the  wonder 
would  be,  not  that  women  of  high  and  low  degree,  of  my 
race  and  color  had  united  to  oppose  the  curse,  but  that 
the  very  stones  did  not  cry  out  with  the  wrong  and  in- 
justice. When  gentle  women — tenderly  raised  and  lov- 
ingly sheltered,  leave  their  homes,  to  go  out  and  spend  a 
lifetime  in  China,  India  or  Brazil — to  be  able  to  reach  a 
class,  who  are  not  to  be  reached  by  missionaries  of  the 
other  sex; — the  church  and  the  world  bestow  approval 
and  blessing.  They  do  a  self-sacrificing  work,  worthy  of 
all  praise  in  earth  or  heaven.  They  encounter  not  only  the 
deepest  ignorance — but  the  most  violent  heathen  prejudice. 

So  when  gentle  women  in  Georgia — understanding  by 
sad  experience,  that  there  is  a  class  here,  who  have  not 
been  reached  by  any  previous  efforts, — a  class  that  scoffs 
at  sobriety  and  gloats  over  the  privilege  of  fastening 
liquor  saloons  upon  the  homes,  the  churches,  the  property 
and  the  civilization  of  our  native  state, — when  these  wives 
and  mothers  lay  aside  self  indulgence,  and  go  into  all 
places  where  such  persons  may  be  reached  by  entreaty 
— tears — prayers  and  good  works;  that  the  land  may  be 
redeemed  and  their  homes  protected,  I  affirm  that  the 
effort  is  equally  praiseworthy — equally  humane,  equally 
Christian  and  heaven  blessed,  as  the  work  of  missionaries 
in  foreign  lands. 

We  have  only  the  weak  things  of  the  world  on  our  side 
— and  like  those  dear  daughters  of  the  church  far  over 
the  sea,  we  go,  not  in  our  own  strength  but  in  the  power 
of  a  just  cause,  and  God's  promise  to  the  suffering — 
weary  and  heavy  laden.  The  city  of  Atlanta  could  not 
protect  itself  by  man's  help  from  liquor  saloons,  after  an 
imperfect  trial  of  two  years  with  the  prohibition  law, 
even  though  it  was  confessed  and  acknowledged  that  they 
were  two  of  the  most  peaceful,  happiest  and  satisfying 
years,  in  the  whole  history  of  this  Capital  city.  I  passed 
along  these  streets  on  the  day  of  defeat,  saw  the  mounte- 
bank of  doubtful  lineage — perched  upon  a  dry  goods 
box  on  one  of  these  thoroughfares,  throwing  out  sacks  of 
flour  and  bushels  of  everything  else  that  could  be  bought 
with  the  great  Whiskey  Ring's  money; — to  catch  liquor 
votes,  and  turned  sorrowfully  into  a  church  on  that  elec- 
tion day,  to  find  some  of  the  best  women  of  Atlanta  on 
their  knees,  praying  God  to  save  their  husbands,  fathers, 

290 


brothers  and  sons  from  temptation  and  destruction,  and  to 
avert  the  threatened  return  of  the  saloons  in  these  streets. 
In  the  midst  of  this  confusion,  there  were  temperance 
men,  who  were  more  afraid  of  women's  appearance  on 
the  street  or  in  the  lunch  rooms  than  of  the  danger  which 
stared  them  and  their  children  in  the  face,  and  which  they 
were  unable  to  manage  or  control  as  it  transpired.  Oh, 
how  we  strain  at  gnats  and  swallow  camels! — What  a 
grand  farce  to  sneer  at  the  presence  or  help  of  women, 
and  yet  promise  to  protect  them  and  their  offspring — when 
Yellowstone  Kit  could  boldly  fling  his  bribes  into  the 
hands  of  ignorant  voters  and  they  chirped  not  a  word  to 
the  police  authorities  and  allowed  him  the  freedom  of  the 
city  to  do  it! — Such  a   surrender  has   no  parallel! 

There  was  never  a  time  in  the  history  of  Georgia  when 
more  active  vigilance  was  required  to  protect  what  has 
been  gained  by  the  hardest  temperance  work.  Party  spirit 
runs  so  high,  that  bribe  givers  and  bribe  takers  are  all 
over  the  land,  their  pockets  strutted  with  Whiskey  Ring 
money.  It  appears  that  temperance  men  are  even  un- 
willing to  train  their  cannon  on  the  common  enemy,  be- 
cause it  may  hurt  some  of  their  political  friends  and 
brothers.  Both  political  parties  are  winking  about,  and 
whispering,  "Hush,  until  we  can  elect  a  president."  The 
200,000  liquor  saloons  and  gin  palaces  meantime  providing 
all  sorts  of  bribes  to  make  the  liquor  vote  a  success. 
Every  office  seeker  is  afraid  to  offend  them  and  who  will 
rescue  the  perishing  or  pity  the  young  boys,  beset  by  sin 
and  pollution,  unless  the  mothers,  wives,  sisters  and 
daughters  unite  for  their  protection?  Oh!  men  of  Amer- 
ica! Who  cares  for  our  sons,  when  the  whole  tide  of  of- 
ficial influence  is  set  against  our  homes! 

In  Washington  city,  at  the  grand  official  banquets,  not 
less  than  seven  wine  glasses  are  circled  around  each 
guests'  plate.  If  one  brand  of  liquor  does  not  please  there 
are  six  more,  ready  to  steal  away  his  reason  and  make 
him  a  willing  party  tool — yet  these  are  two  of  the  leaders 
in  the  House  of  Representatives — men  on  the  topmost 
round  of  the  ladder,  who  have  been  rescued  from  a  drunk- 
ard's fate  by  God's  mercy — who  dare  not  touch  one  drop 
or  they  will  fall  from  their  high  estate.  Their  only  safety 
lies  in  total  abstinence — a  fact  known  to  all,  friend  and 
foe  alike.  Nothing  but  ambition  and  the  ceaseless  vigi- 
lance of  their  noble  wives  have  kept  them  from  a  de- 
bauchee's grave  long  ago,  and  yet  those  seven  wine 
glasses  stare  at  those  men  at  every  turn  and  the  Demon 
of  drink  smiles  and  smirks,  prompts  the  temptation  and 
prompts  the  tempter  or  temptress  to  ruin  these  truly  great 
and  brilliant  men — and  for  what? 

What  is  politics  intended  for,  in  the  name  of  Heaven, 
if  it  refuses  to  protect  life  and  property?  As  sure  as 
there  is  a  sun  in  yonder  sky,  the  reaction  will  come.     Peo- 

291 


pie  are  already  asking — in  what  am  I,  my  children  or  my 
homes  improved  by  present  politics? 

Last  August,  the  very  reliable  correspondent  of  the 
Augusta  Chronicle,  reported  a  meeting  of  the  liquor  men 
at  the  Kimball  House,  and  they  pledged  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  at  that  meeting  to  defeat  prohibition 
here  in  Atlanta.  When  the  money  was  distributed,  cause 
and  effect  were  easily  joined.  Such  is  the  bait  set  to 
catch  human  ignorance  and  depravity.  Such  are  the  traps 
to  catch  votes,  and  such  the  agencies  which  control  our 
legislation. 

Sneer  at  woman's  weak  effort,  if  you  will,  but  the  time 
thus  wasted,  would  be  better  employed  in  vindicating  your 
own  patriotism  and  manhood.  The  women  have  no  part 
or  lot  in  such  legislation.  It  is  no  wonder  that  gentlemen 
should  shudder,  because  ladies  should  witness  such  efforts 
at  election  times.  No  wonder  that  fathers  and  husbands 
should  declare  politics  to  be  a  dirty  pool — but  what  a 
commentary  on  men's  work  when  they  run  it  alone!  A 
woman,  whose  kitchen  or  work  room  was  so  foul  that  she 
must  stand  at  the  door  and  proclaim  its  unfitness  and  its 
filth  to  the  world  would  get  but  little  sympathy  from  either 
sex.  The  remedy  would  be  too  plain  and  so  easily  stated, 
that  she  would  crawl  into  a  dust  hole  and  pull  her  robes 
along  in  with  her,  but  our  law  makers  and  law  dispensors 
take  so  much  pride  in  their  own  incapacity  and  incom- 
petency, that  they  return  again  and  again  to  wallow  in 
the  same  cesspool  and  enjoy  its  exceeding  bad  odor  so 
much  as  to  enthrone  and  deify  it,  in  every  canvass  for 
President,  State  officials  and  even  minor  officials. 

But  with  these  facts  so  plain,  that  they  are  ques- 
tion— you  find  beardless  boys,  and  small,  sap-headed  edit- 
ors sneering  at  the  ladies  of  the  Temperance  Union — as  be- 
ing "out  of  their  place" — unwomanly — a  "hard  lot," — and 
other  kindred  terms.  The  grog  shops  inspire  their  insolence 
and  all  such  "poll  parroting"  is  directly  traceable  to  such 
influence.  So  far  as  I  can  understand  or  am  informed, 
we  are  seeking  no  office  that  any  of  the  politicians  can 
claim — there  is  no  intention  or  desire  to  usurp  any  power 
or  privilege  that  belongs  of  right  to  man.  When  you 
charge  us  with  unwomanliness — because  we  petition  our 
law  makers  to  protect  us  from  the  curse  of  liquor  selling 
— so  that  our  young  sons  may  go  to  school  or  to  market 
or  the  post  office  without  passing  the  open  door  to  every 
sin  known  to  the  decalogue,  I  ask  is  it  manly  to  force  us  to 
the  extremity?  Can  it  be  womanly  to  endure  such  evils 
quietly?  Can  it  be  unwomanly  to  seek  to  avert  them?  An 
evil  agency,  placed  right  at  my  threshold  which  makes  of 
innocent  children,  thieves,  murderers,  forgers,  prostitutes, 
lunatics  and  suicides,  is  an  evil  that  mother-love  will  rise 
against  irrespressibly,  and  you  could  not  censure  a  mother 
who  would  thrust  out  her  right  arm  to  rescue  her  helpless 

292 


babe  from  the  fang  of  a  snake,  and  can  you  be  unwomanly, 
to  seek  to  protect  your  child  from  the  fang  of  the  reptile 
which  never  dies,  which  frequents  public  thoroughfares — 
lurks  in  dark  places — hides  in  the  wine  cup  of  the  rich 
and  poisons  the  life  breath  of  the  poor,  and  never  sleeps 
and  never  tires — which  sits  over  the  ballot-boxes  and  flings 
its  banner  under  church  steeples.  Say,  oh!  men  of  Georgia, 
would'nt  I  be  less  than  a  woman  not  to  cry  out  for  safety? 
Would  you  add  insult  to  injury  by  telling  me  to  make 
tatting,  paint  China  plates,  or  fondle  poodle  dogs,  while 
the  door  to  perdition  was  opened  on  the  next  street  corner, 
and  my  boy  may  be  gone,  before  I  know  it? 

My  sisters,  it  is  not  only  right,  but  our  bonden  duty  to 
antagonize  it,  at  home  or  abroad— no  matter  where  it  may 
be  found.  I  feel  it  to  be  right  in  every  fibre  of  my  frame, 
and  if  this  is  unwomanly,  in  common  parlance,  perish  the 
bauble  which  rests  in  so  frail  a  foundation  and  give  me 
instead  that  crown  of  mother-love,  universal  sympathy  and 
Christian  charity,  that  can  know  no  fear  in  the  cause  of 
right,  and  which  temporizes  with  no  evil,  that  destroys 
or  afflicts.  One  of  the  saddest  sights  under  heaven  is  the 
appearance  of  a  wife  and  mother  to  plead  for  a  man's 
life — when  condemned  to  the  gallows.  If  the  crime  was 
caused  by  liquor  the  case  is  more  pitiable  still.  The  poor 
woman  is  as  helpless  to  prevent  the  cause — as  she  is 
certainly  the  first  to  suffer.  Whatever  there  may  be  of 
shame,  of  loss,  of  agony — her  poor  heart  is  always  in  place 
for  the  stroke.  I  would  ask,  is  it  more  womanly  to  kneel  at 
the  executive's  feet  and  implore  pardon — or  to  go  into  the 
lawmaker's  presence  and  demand  a  prevention  of  the 
cause?  My  sisters,  the  evil  is  ever  present  with  us.  It  is 
not  an  occasional  case.  The  State  of  Georgia  is  filled  with 
police  courts,  court  houses,  jails  and  convict  camps  and 
the  taxpayers  are  called  upon  to  furnish  nine-tenths  of 
all  their  tax-money  to  pay  for  the  results  of  liquor  selling 
and  liquor  drinking.  It  permeates  nearly  every  home — it 
touches  directly  or  remotely  on  every  life. 

It  has  been  even  charged  that  we  women  seek  notoriety 
in  making  this  public  protest — especially  if  we  open  our 
mouths  and  speak  the  mind  that  is  in  us.  It  would  be 
strange  indeed  if  some  were  not  so  prompted.  In  all  their 
lifetimes  they  have  discovered  the  men  of  the  family, 
anxious  to  speak,  and  perhaps  violently  doing  it.  Perhaps 
it  is  a  weakness  inherent  to  the  race,  irrespective  of  sex 
or  color. 

It  has  been  charged  that  we  make  mistakes.  Allowing 
for  our  inexperience  and  the  masculine  examples  we  have 
had  to  follow,  the  wonder  is,  we  make  so  few. 

Our  vision  is  perhaps  obscured  very  often — but  when 
has  not  such  obscurity  obtained,  judging  by  the  efforts  of 
our  critics,  in  church  and  state. 

293 


Believe  me,  calico  is  entirely  willing  to  follow  broad- 
cloth quoting  our  dear  Mrs.  Chapin — but  when  broadcloth 
is  afraid — or  too  indolent,  calico  aims  to  get  there  never- 
theless. 

I  am  of  the  opinion  that  a  lady  who  is  the  woman  of  all 
work  in  the  family — trainer  of  children — housekeeper  and 
cook — seamstress  and  servant — mistress  and  maid — 
counsellor  and  waiting  woman — nurse  and  general  standby 
in  all  difficulties — graduated  and  accomplished  in  so  much 
valuable  work,  and  in  so  many  useful  ways,  is  entitled  to 
rather  more  respect  than  some  accord  her,  because  she 
has  reached  the  deliberate  opinion  that  God  helps  those 
who  help  themselves.  The  clinging  ivy  and  sturdy  oak 
is  a  pretty  simile  of  domestic  dependency  but  nevertheless 
the  ivy  }s  sometimes  so  foreshortened  at  the  top  and  so 
closely  trimmed  at  the  sides  that  it  must  stand  alone  per- 
force— and  some  women  remind  me  of  the  cab  horse  of 
Pickwick — who,  when  buckled  into  the  domestic  harness, 
"We  bears  'em  up  very  tight,  and  takes  'em  in  very 
short,  so  she  can't  werry  well  fall  down,"  and  when  she 
starts  the  domestic  wheels,  onwards,  they  run  after  her, 
and  she  must  go,  because  she  can't  help  it. 

But  I  must  add  a  word  of  thanks  to  the  good  husbands, 
the  good  fathers  and  the  good  brothers  and  sons,  who  stand 
by  us,  and  perhaps  I  am  emboldened  thus  to  speak  my 
mind  freely,  because  I  am  helped  to  it  in  my  own  home 
and  at  my  own  fireside.  My  path  in  the  work  has  been 
smoothed  for  me — and  I  speak  advisedly  when  I  say  a 
temperance  home  is  a  gracious  boon  to  every  true  woman's 
heart. 

I  would  like  the  privilege  of  quoting  an  extract  from 
an  editorial  published  in  a  Cumberland  Presbyterian  news- 
paper when  the  National  W.  C.  Temperance  Union  was 
in  session  at  Nashville.  Rev.  Mr.  Harris  won  golden 
opinions  from  the  delegates  by  his  courtesy  and  genuine 
feOod  will,  and  he  had  full  opportunity  to  give  an  unbiased 
criticism. 

Said  he:  "It  was  a  most  remarkable  assembly  of  cul- 
tivated, refined,  earnest,  consecrated  Christian  women. 
No  nobler  body  of  women  ever  honored  this  city  with 
their  presence.  The  great  majority  of  them  are  model 
wives  and  mothers.  They  are,  we  verily  believe,  the  very 
angels  of  God  sent  out  to  bear  a  conspicuous  part  in  the 
work  of  reform  so  much  needed  and  so  little  heeded. 
There  were  women  in  that  convention  who,  for  mental  and 
moral  power  and  personal  dignity,  have  no  superiors 
among  the  women  of  this  generation.  Over  twenty  reli- 
gious denominations  were  present,  but  while  so  many  in 
creed,  they  were  of  one  mind  and  heart;  no  dissension  or 
disputing,  all  seemed  to  have  one  object  in  view,  the  glory 
of  God,  and  the  good  of  the  world?"  By  way  of  contrast 
allow  me  also  to  allude  to  a  late  convention  in  this  city 

294 


to  select  Cleveland  delegates  to  send  to  St.  Louis.  I  did 
not  see  the  scenes  reported  to  me  by  a  friend  but  some  of 
the  occurrences  were  printed  in  the  daily  papers.  I  asked 
myself,  what  an  example  to  the  youth  of  this  country? 
What  a  commentary  upon  the  politics  which  excludes  tem- 
perance from  its  platform?  Maudlin  drunkenness  took 
possession  of  the  floor  at  one  stage  of  the  proceedings,  and 
a  Punch  and  Judy  show  followed  with  politicians  as  the 
harlequins. 

The  uprising  of  the  women  of  America  on  temperance 
is  a  natural  sequence  to  their  mother  love.  As  Mr.  Grady 
said  of  himself  so  touchingly  in  a  speech  last  November 
before  the  Prohibition  club,  in  this  city,  I  can  also  say  of 
myself,  and  the  mothers  here  present  will  I  doubt  not  re- 
peat the  echo.  Said  he:  "I  have  a  boy  as  dear  to  me  as  the 
ruddy  drops  that  gather  about  this  heart!  I  find  my  hope 
centering  in  this  little  body.  I  look  to  him  to  take  the 
work,  which  strive  as  I  may  must  fall  unfinished  from  my 
hands.  That  boy  may  fall  from  the  right  path,  as  things 
now  exist,  but  if  I  were  not  to  oppose  this  liquor  curse 
and  he  fell  through  this  agency  I  could  not  find  answer 
to  my  conscience  or  support  my  remorse. 

"If  I  felt  that  my  hand  had  lured  my  son  to  the  bottle, 
or  my  love  for  wine  had  fostered  the  fatal  appetite,  God 
alone  knows  how  the  agony  could  be  borne." 


MRS.     FELTON'S    SHARP     REPLY    TO     DR.     ROBERTS, 
OF  TRINITY. 


July   7,   1897. 
To  the  Editor  of  The  Atlanta  Journal: 

Twice  within  the  past  week,  the  pastor  of  Trinity 
church  in  Atlanta  has  appeared  in  the  public  prints — to 
exploit  his  opinion  of  temperance  women — especially  of 
those  who  have  been  accustomed  to  worship  in  Trinity 
church,  some,  perhaps,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

His  first  appearance  was  headlined  a  "Hot  Roast" — and 
came  out  as  an  interview  with  a  reporter.  Alleged  mis- 
takes on  the  part  of  the  reporter  gave  an  excuse  to  come 
again — the  last  time  as  "pastor  of  Trinity  church" — his 
official  cognomen. 

The  "Hot  Roast"  was  bad  enough  in  tone  and  temper, 
but  the  explanation  was  even  worse.  One  was  the  opinion 
of  J.  W.  Roberts,  D.  D. — the  other  voiced  the  opinion  of 
his  official  board — because  he  claims  to  "own"  the  church 
and  its  belongings,  and  when  he  issues  an  article  signed 
officially,  it  stands  as  the  voice  of  those  whom  he  claims 
to  "own." 

295 


Before  beginning  a  review  of  these  two  appearances,  I 
wish  to  explain  why  I  notice  them  at  all,  because  the 
women  that  were  ejected  or  evicted  from  basement  privi- 
leges, are  amply  able  to  take  care  of  themselves.  His 
offensive  words  have  a  personal  bearing  in  my  case,  and 
I  leave  it  to  your  readers  to  decide  whether  I  have  a 
warrant  for  public  criticism  or  not. 

Some  months  ago,  when  the  anti-barroom  measure  was 
en  tapis  before  the  Georgia  legislature,  I  received  a  writ- 
ten invitation  from  an  official  member  of  Trinity  church 
asking  me  to  appeal  to  his  Sunday  school  class  in  the  audi- 
torium and  to  the  audience,  before  preaching  hours,  and 
entreat  their  influence  to  secure  favorable  action  on  the 
measure,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  mother  in  behalf  of 
the  children.  I  had  no  intimation  that  the  pastor  had 
opposing  views  about  women,  and  accepted  Mr.  Witham's 
invitation  in  the  spirit  and  letter  of  its  proposal.  I  did 
the  best  I  could  and  was  publicly  thanked  by  Mr.  Witham 
for  the  earnestness  of  my  appeal.  The  pastor  did  not  ap- 
pear, either  to  listen,  to  commend  or  disapprove.  That 
was  his  privilege,  but  I  insist  that  it  was  the  time  to  make 
known  his  disapproval,  without  waiting  all  these  months, 
to  come  out  in  a  newspaper  to  condemn  "all  sorts  of  folks" 
who  had  been  making  a  "town  hall"  of  the  church  build- 
ing. I  presume  Mr.  Witham  felt  he  had  some  rights,  as 
I  understand  he  belongs  to  the  board  of  stewards,  and  I 
could  also  understand  that  in  such  a  crisis  the  people  who 
were  earnestly  in  favor  of  practical  temperance  measures, 
were  willing  to  listen  to  something  else  beside  the  glit- 
tering generalities  and  expansive  platitudes  on  everything 
out  of  sight,  and  far  removed  from  the  sublunary  trials, 
difficulties  and  besetments  near  at  hand.  It  is  a  remark- 
able state  of  things  when  revivals  in  modern  Methodist 
churches  are  almost  unknown.  Occasionally  the  churches 
get  so  hungry  for  the  bread  of  life  that  they  import  an 
evangelist  to  stir  up  the  church  and  awaken  sinners. 

I  cannot  wonder  at  the  apathy  in  Atlanta's  two  high 
church  Methodist  buildings,  nor  at  the  avidity  with  which 
the  common  people  accepted  Rev.  Sam  Jones'  revival 
sermons,  because  it  is  understood  that  the  fashionable 
Methodist  officials  in  both  organizations  gave  prohibition 
a  very  black  eye  in  the  last  state  election.  Methodist 
preachers  in  Georgia  were  always  considered  sponsors  for 
the  temperance  cause  in  former  times,  but  with  some 
honorable  exceptions  the  latter  day  "big  Ikes,"  actually 
took  pleasure  in  pulling  off  the  lion's  skin  and  giving 
full  scope  to  the  ears  and  the  bray  of  the  other  animal — 
in  last  year's  elections.  Dr.  Roberts  made  very  sweeping 
declarations  against  "all  sort  of  folks"  who  had  spoken 
in  Trinity's  auditorium  and  as  it  is  understood  that  I  came 
in  for  a  share  of  censure  by  indirection— if  not  by  name — 
I  am  here  to  emphasize  the  fact,  that  I  not  only  did  not 

296 


force  my  efforts  upon  himself  or  dissenting  members  who 
agree  with  him,  but  I  went  by  invitation  of  one  of  the 
board  of  stewards.  I  repeat,  Dr.  Roberts  had  the  occasion 
and  the  opportunity  to  put  his  veto  upon  the  movement 
at  that  time,  and  could  have  saved  himself  the  present 
trouble  and  myself  the  mortification  of  being  unwelcome 
to  himself  and  friends,  and  I  insist  that  having  failed  to 
rebuke  Mr.  Witham  for  sending  me  the  invitation,  and 
having  failed  for  some  reason  to  notify  me  at  the  time, 
that  my  appearance  and  my  theme  were  at  cross-purposes 
with  the  "powers  that  be,"  the  manly  thing  to  have  done 
was  to  have  stated  the  facts  and  made  the  proper  excep- 
tion in  my  case  or  to  have  held  his  peace  until  another 
similar  occasion  arrived  for  stringent  measures.  There- 
fore I  do  not  intend  to  hide  the  facts  in  this  case,  and  I 
propose  to  review  the  whole  affair  in  the  spirit  of  proper 
inquiry  and  investigation  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  do  so. 

I  have  never  joined  a  suffrage  association  and  have 
never  made  a  public  appeal  for  the  right  to  vote,  but 
whether  my  "brain"  is  strong  enough  to  comprehend  the 
subject  or  too  "small,  light  and  fine,"  to  know  what 
I  am  talking  about,  I  am  still  a  woman  and  the  pastor  of 
Trinity  church  deserves  some  attention  as  an  official 
which  the  doctor  of  divinity  per  se  does  not  merit  from 
my  sex,  at  this  time. 

He  tells  the  public,  speaking  as  "pastor,"  that  women 
should  be  kept  where  "he  thinks"  they  belong,  because 
their  brains  are  "smaller  than  men's,  lighter  and  of  finer 
structure."  Pray  tell  me,  who  constituted  him  the  judge 
of  what  they  must  think  or  speak  (outside  of  his  own 
household),  and  on  what  "meat  hath  this  Caesar  fed,"  that 
he  should  suppress  her  protest  against  anything  of  public 
nature,  that  materially  affects  her  "life,  liberty  or  happi- 
ness?" If  a  woman  has  only  a  half -ounce  of  brain  matter, 
while  he  weighs  his  own  in  pounds  avoirdupois,  who  gave 
him  permission  to  put  his  ecclesiastic  limit  on  her  intel- 
ligence or  freedom  of  speech? 

The  "pastor"  shold  be  reminded  that  the  elephant  has 
bains  to  spare,  but  that  great  amount  of  gray  matter  ex- 
pends its  intelligence  upon  its  voracious  appetite  and  in 
pursuing  its  revenges  by  squirting  gallons  of  filthy  water 
on  all  it  dislikes.  This  is  a  bad  showing  for  the  argument 
that  small  brains  mean  small  intelligence,  while  great 
amount  of  brains  means  superior  excellence. 

As  pastor  of  Trinity  cburch,  in  the  city  of  Atlanta,  there 
can  be  no  lack  of  subjects  to  preach  about,  even  leaving 
out  the  violations  of  disciplinary  rules  of  the  Methodist 
church.  A  pastor  with  small  brain  power  would  perhaps 
be  able  to  see  there  had  been  a  very  cyclone  of  disaster 
— moral  wrecks,  swindling  schemes,  murders,  suicides  and 
a  thousand  other  dreadful  happenings  all  around  and  about 
his  pastorate.     The  discipline  bears  heavily  upon  wordly 

297 


amusements,  dram  drinking,  etc.,  but  the  "pastor"  with 
great  expanse  of  brain  has  overlooked  the  wrecks,  the 
debauchery,  the  corruption,  and  it  has  led  him  on  to  fight- 
ing women,  and  those  women  in  good  repute  and  members 
of  his  own  church!    Alas! 

He  had  better  pray  for  some  sort  of  massage  treatment, 
that  will  bring  his  brain  to  normal  condition,  and  clear  his 
vision  as  to  what  he  is  expected  to  do,  in  the  service  and 
ministry  of  the  living  God! 

What  a  pity  that  he  couldn't  find  a  reporter,  while  the 
town  was  ringing  with  all  the  horrors  mentioned  when 
he  could  so  easily  stumble  upon  a  willing  pen — to  pour  out 
the  vials  of  his  wrath,  from  an  elevation, — upon  the  pray- 
ing women  of  his  own  congregation  and  members  of  the 
same  church!  If  a  fine-toothed  comb  was  passed  through 
his  congregation  do  you  not  suppose  he  would  catch  other 
vermin  than  the  women  who  asked  his  permission  to  warm 
their  cold  feet  by  the  embers  of  the  priest's  fire  down  in 
the  basement,  and  sit  on  the  benches  for  an  hour,  once  a 
week — to  unite  in  prayer  to  God,  to  save  themselves  and 
children  from  another  immoral  cyclone?  He  has  accused 
them  of  "gossip  and  politics" — taunted  them  with  their 
small  supply  of  brains — and  says,  in  derision,  that  "all  sorts 
of  folks"  go  to  Trinity,  turning  the  church  into  a  "town 
hall,"  etc.  The  Bible  tells  us  that  a  living  dog  is  better  than 
a  dead  lion — and  I  would  remind  the  pastor  that  the  virility 
of  a  town  hall  is  better  than  the  decorum  of  a  fashionable 
graveyard!  It  would  take  a  double-acting  microscope  to 
enable  an  outsider  to  tell  where  the  saint  leaves  off  and 
the  sinner  begins — among  some  of  the  great  brains  of  his 
own  class  and  order,  and  common  rumor  says  the  "gossip" 
of  these  masculines  is  as  deadly  as  their  brains  are  ex- 
tensive. For  instance,  the  most  pungent  piece  of  gossip, 
which  has  traveled  this  far  from  Trinity  church,  relates 
to  the  discussion  of  one  preacher's  character  by  another. 

One  had  money  to  loan  and  the  other  desired  to  borrow, 
but  the  brother  that  sheds  tears  at  communion  service— 
and  looks  up  lovingly  into  the  other  preachers's  face  for 
public  effect  decided  not  to  loan  him  his  "surplus,"  because 
he  "would  never  expect  to  see  a  dollar  of  it  again."  Along 
with  this  gossip  we  hear  about  garnisheeing  preacher's 
salaries — to  make  their  creditors  easy  in  mind  and  pocket 
— end  I'll  put  my  little  bit  of  temperance  politics  in  my 
own  pocket,  and  give  the  "pastor" — the  acrid  gossip  of 
Trinity  church,  and  feel  comforted  in  my  poverty  and  bid 
him  welcome  to  his  riches — and  the  remarkable  unity  of 
Trinity  church! 

The  doctor  of  divinity  told  the  reporter  that  men  "lose 
all  respect  for  women  who  dabble  in  politics."  I  reply — 
that  all  honorable  peopie  regardless  of  sex — despise  hypo- 
crisy and  double  dealing  in  both  saint  and  sinnner — 
preachers  not  excepted. 

298 


Respect  and  disrespect  are  comparative  terms  of  ex- 
pression. The  value  of  the  respect  is  proportioned  to  the 
quality  of  the  "respecter."  Rev.  John  Wesley  received 
but  little  respect  from  his  foes  in  Savannah  or  his  eccle- 
siastical opponents  in  England.  But  John  Wesley  did  not 
cry  his  eyes  out  about  the  respect  and  I  am  not  going  to 
do  so  either.  I  can  say  to  the  "pastor  of  Trinity"  that  he 
is  at  liberty  to  fold  up  any  "respect"  that  gives  him  trouble 
in  my  case — in  a  clean  linen  napkin — and  lay  away  the 
precious  thing  with  decent  burial.  I  thank  God  that  His 
ear  is  ever  open  to  the  cry  of  the  honest  seeker  of  truth 
— and  that  His  habitations  are  many — and  His  work  is  in 
nowise  destroyed  by  the  opinionated  disciples  that  are 
eager  as  of  old,  to  occupy  thrones  in  these  ecclesiastical 
kingdoms.  Of  all  the  silly  things  under  the  sun  it  is  the 
dry-as-dust  Methodist  preacher  who  banks  on  his  good 
looks  and  his  pocketbook!  They  are  forever  catching  at 
the  Lord's  ark  to  keep  impious  hands  from  shaking  the 
treasure,  and  regardless  of  Uzzah's  fate — they  seem  to 
learn  nothing  from  another's  unhappy  experience! 

The  time  has  been  when  Methodism  was  the  greatest 
reborning  church  known  to  this  broad  land.  The  preachers 
received  only  a  scheduled  salary — so  much  for  himself — 
so  much  for  his  wife  and  a  similar  portion  for  each  child. 
By  this  method,  the  pulpit  was  confined  to  those  who  were 
eager  to  save  souls — and  kept  away  from  those  who  were 
greedy  for  money.  There  were  hardships  and  privations 
— but  the  Lord's  work  was  all  powerful  and  people  had 
faith  in  these  humble  followers  of  the  Master.  They  were 
ambitious  to  tell  of  conversions  at  the  annual  conferences. 
Now  they  talk  of  assessments  and  collections.  It  is  the 
most  desirable  of  professions,  because  it  gives  the  quickest 
return  in  money  and  position.  Law  and  medicine  go  at 
tortoise  gait  for  many  years,  but  a  preacher  in  favor  with 
his  superiors  in  office,  jumps  at  one  bound  into  the  best 
society,  and  has  the  full  power  of  the  church  organization 
to  force  payment  of  his  salary  from  the  members. 

As  a  rule,  preachers  are  not  less  human  than  other  men. 
They  have  a  keen  relish  for  the  good  things  of  life — all 
of  which  they  are  to  be  excused  for — but  when  dressed 
in  a  little  brief  authority  they  get  impressed  very  often 
with  the  belief  that  they  are  the  Lord's  anointed  and  fly 
to  the  horns  of  the  altar  for  protection  from  criticism 
which  their  assumacy  merits.  It  is  somebody's  duty  to 
take  enough  of  the  shine  off  the  shoe  to  see  whether  the 
leather  is  genuine  or  shoddy.  Maybe  their  expansive  brain- 
cells  do  not  or  cannot  understand  this  situation — but  a 
little  inquiry  will  make  it  clear  that  the  people  are  getting 
awfully  tired  of  the  whip  in  Methodist  methods,  and  even 
more  tired  of  some  of  the  whipsters. 

MRS.  W.  H.  FELTON. 


299 


CONTENTS 


Why  This  Book  Was  Written 5-7 

Some  Indian  Reminiscenses 8-16 

My  Kinspeople  16-57 

Big  Auction  Sale , 54 

Railroads,  Schools,  School  Teachers  and  Revivals..     57-67 

Atlanta's  Early  Society 67-76 

Slavery  In  the  South 77-94 

Southern  Women  In  the  Civil  War 95-107 

My  Recollections  of  Large  Expositions 107-115 

The  Tennessee  Centennial 113 

The  St.  Louis  Exposition  114 

Interesting  Incidents  In  the  Life  of  Mrs.  William 

H.  Felton 115-122 

Some  Distinguished  People  I  Have  Met 123-147 

Justice  Clifford  and  Justice  Davis 124 

Mrs.  Felton's  Message  to  the  20th  Century 141-157 

Some  of  the  Influences  Which  Affect  Life  and 

Character 141 

The  Methodist  Publishing  House  and  My  Connection 

With  Its  Exposure    157-170 

Mrs.   Felton   Says   the   Church   Paid  Enormous 

Lobby  Fees  161 

Methodist  War  Claims   164 

Rev.  J.  W.  Duffy's  Statement  166 

Debate  In  the  Senate 167 

Address  Before  the  Georgia  Legislature,  November, 

1901   170-192 

Thirty  Years  of  Experience 175 

Georgia's  Conditions  Different  From  Many  Other 

States 176 


Georgia's  Liabilities  Are  Heavy 177 

Many  Children  Do  Not  Attend  Common  Schools.        177 

Injustice  To  Tax  Payers  Is  Great 178 

The  Governor  Says 179 

An  Example  of  Its  Poor  Work  In  Rural  Schools.        180 

Equalize  the  Obligation 181 

Another  Example  of  Its  Workings 182 

A  Straight  Business  Proposition 185 

Pay  For  No  More   Teachers   Than   There   Are 

Children  Who  Can  Be  Taught 187 

Another  Illustration  of  Unsatisfactory  Methods.        189 

More  Tax  Money  the  Continued  Cry 191 

Election  Frauds  In  Georgia  In  1894 193-207 

Mrs.  Felton's  Story 198 

Mrs.  Felton's  Own  Story   199 

Mr.  Fite's  Defense   199 

Her  Respects  To  Judge  Branham 200 

The  "Sam  Holt"  Circular 200 

Dudley  For  Dr.  Felton 201 

Referred  To  Vandiver 202 

Mrs.   Felton's   Speech    203 

Hit  At  Charlie  Bartlett 204 

Address   Delivered   Before  Joint   Committee   House 

and  Senate,  November,  1895 207-213 

Mrs.  Felton's  Appeal 207 

The  Woman's  Press  Club  of  Georgia 213 

Prominent    Women    In    Journalism;     Mrs.     Felton 

Discusses  the  Subject 213-218 

Preface  To  Sermon 219 

Sermon  Delivered  by  Rev.  Dr.  W.  H.  Felton  In  Car- 

tersville,  Ga 220-230 

Life  and  Character  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee 231-241 

General  Lee    239 

The  Striped  Pig  of  Georgia 242-246 

Why  I  Am  a  Suffragist 246-260 


Former  Subjection  of  Women 248 

Constitutional  Convention  of  1868 250 

Votes  For  Women — Some  Objections  as  Printed 

In  the  Papers 250 

Is  the  Ballot  a  Right  or  a  Favor? 251 

If  Women  Do  Not  Want  To  Vote — No  Objection.        255 

The  Serious  Mistake   256 

A  Word  To  Men  Concerning  Their  Mothers...        257 

Some  Excuses 258 

New  Men  As  Well  As  New  Women 259 

My  Pet 261-264 

Mrs.  Dr.  W.  H.  Felton  On  Heredity. 264-270 

The  Industrial  School  For  Girls 270-272 

A  Night  In  the  Confederacy 272-279 

Original   Communications    279-284 

The  Problems  That  Interest  Mothers 279 

From  Mrs.  Felton   284-289 

Address  On  Prohibition 289-295 

Sharp  Reply  To  Dr.  Roberts  of  Trinity 295-299 


